Sunlight on the Lawn

Sunlight on the Lawn brings to a close Beverley Nichols's delightful Merry Hall trilogy describing the renovation of his run-down Georgian mansion and its garden.

Booknews

Nichols (1899-1983) was a prolific writer whose corpus included a number of genuinely humorous and whimsical gardening books. This volume comprises the last in a trilogy recounting the story of his restoration of Merry Hall, a Georgian estate that he rescued from the wilderness following WWII. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Beverley Nichols (1898–1983) was a prolific writer on subjects ranging from religion to politics and travel, in addition to authoring six novels, five detective mysteries, four children's stories, six autobiographies, and six plays. He is perhaps best remembered today for his gardening books. The first of them, Down the Garden Path, centered on his home and garden at Glatton and has been in print almost continuously since 1932. Merry Hall (1951) and its sequels Laughter on the Stairs (1953) and Sunlight on the Lawn (1956) document Nichols' travails in renovating a Georgian mansion and its gardens soon after the war. His final garden was at Sudbrook Cottage, which serves as the setting for Garden Open Today (1963) and Garden Open Tomorrow (1968). The progress of all three gardens was followed avidly by readers of his books and weekly magazine columns.