American Garden Writing features the letters, travel journals, essays, natural histoires, and seed catalogues of over 50 authors, including Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Olmsted (who designed Central Park), Henry David Thoreau, and Edith Wharton. With topics ranging from the decorative gardens of yesteryear to the ecological concerns of today, these pieces evoke the pastoral and social environments of their time. This expanded edition contains new pieces from diane Ackerman, Joan Dye Gussow, Jamaica Kincaid, Janet Marinelli, Gary Paul Nabhan, Michael Polan, Sara B. Stein, Peg Streep, Alice Waters, and William Woys Weaver.