"This book offers a view into a strange and delightful world with characteristics worth emulating." - "The Atlantic" "[Ji Cheng's] delightful "how-to-do-it" manual, published around 1631, is here put in historical context by Maggie Keswick in her foreword, while Alison Hardie provides an accurate and readable translation, a scholarly preface and a wealth of necessary endnotes based on the work of the modern Chinese editors." - "Times Literary Supplement" "Ji Cheng's book, beautifully translated and illustrated, gives a wonderful insight into the Chinese concept of what a garden should be and shows how, in the late Ming dynasty, the planning and ownership of a garden was a way of life. Alison Hardie's excellent notes lead you through this exquisite back door into the high culture of 17th century China." - "The Garden: Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society"