Abstract
To study garden literature in relation to courtesy-books is a paradoxical choice for an eighteenth century specialist. Gentlemen of note began to imitate a style of living which they associated with new artistic trends; and what was apparently a negation of sociability became the object of social imitation. It is this paradox showing the part played by gardenists and improvers in relation of landscape gardening to social values from Pope's Epistle to Burlington to Mason's The English Garden . To understand this paradox one has to start from that great regulator of Hanoverian social standards, Addison. Since the Addison-Pope filiation obviously bears a relation to Augustan patterns of behaviour, the author discusses garden literature in relation to the general evolution of ideas and manners in the Georgian age. For the sake of clarity he groups the different aspects of this complex question under four different headings, economics, politics, aesthetics and psychology. Keywords: courtesy-books; garden literature; gentlemen; Georgian age; Mason's The English Garden ; Pope's Epistle to Burlington
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