Old herbals, marginalia, saffron cultivation and Tudor poet, Gabriel Harvey of Saffron Walden will all be discussed in the next talk of the Gibson Library Society.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, England’s printing presses churned out dozens of instructional manuals or ‘how-to’ books for the aspiring gardener or herbalist. This talk explored why these books were enduringly popular with Tudor and Stuart readers by turning to surviving copies with notes scribbled in the margins, and shows that learning to garden was just one of many reasons why people read their how-to books.

Dr Grace Murray is a Lecturer in English Literature at Birkbeck, University of London, where she specialises in the history of reading in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She is interested in how people throughout history have read and written about practical knowledge, especially concerning plants. Grace assisted with research for the recent British Library exhibition Unearthed: The Power of Gardening, and co-curated the ongoing National Trust exhibition Whispers of the Wilderness: Exploring Wilderness Gardens at Beningbrough Hall in North Yorkshire.