Little Sparta: The Garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay

Sir Roy Strong calls Little Sparta ‘the only really original garden made in this country since 1945’. Ian Hamilton Finlay’s unique creation in the Pentland Hills south of Edinburgh is a garden composed as an artwork in itself. It incorporates concrete poetry, moral polemic, philosophical reflection and a sparkling sense of humour. While Finlay’s works and installations throughout Europe and North America are well documented and justly famous, this is the first book devoted solely to the garden at Little Sparta, which has been at the heart of his life’s work. It offers the reader a sense of the diversity and originality of the garden along with a text that unfolds the layers of meaning it contains.