Terrestrial paradise and primeval garden, Eden represents an ideal of innocence and perfection that can only be aspired to today. Yet it has remained a conceptual prototype for gardens worldwide: a place of well-being isolated from the stress of daily life.

Writer and photographer Ovidio Guaita has spent ten years preparing this lavishly illustrated volume, the most vast and complete picture possible of the myriad forms the garden has assumed in every corner of the world. Divided into five sections -- the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania -- the book includes a great number of historic and contemporary gardens. The history of landscape in each region and country is discussed; beautiful color photographs complement the text. Among the important gardens featured are those of the J. Paul Getty Mansion in Malibu, California; the Half Moon Club in Montego Bay, Jamaica; Blenheim Palace in England; the chateau of Fontainebleau near Paris; and the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, as well as many private estates and mansions. Also included are eight botanical interludes showing the flowers and plants of particular locales.

Ovidio Guaita works in the Department of History and Restoration of the Faculty of Architecture of Florence and is a correspondent for the magazine Ville e Giardini. Among his books is On Distant Shores: Colonial Houses around the World.