Customer Reviews
Not as good as the Tudor Court Novels! - By: Tiger Sue, 10 Mar 2008 
I see that the other reviews for this book are good, but I have to say it was a reallly bad book. I've read many Gregory books (The Tudor Court novels, A Respectable Trade etc) & this is the worst. The book spans a large amount of time & I got the feeling that there was a lot of unnecessary padding & over lengthy descriptions.
The ridiculous gay overtones which were no doubt meant to be touching just reminded me of the fast show sketch with the gardner & the landowner.
Avoid!
Historical Fiction at It's Best - By: J. Chippindale, 01 Dec 2007 
Philippa Gregory has a number of extremely successful novels behind her & this is one of them, published in 1998, it is the first book in the Earthly Joys series. She has also written the Boleyn novels & a number of other acclaimed fiction books. She lives with her family in Sussex.
Most of us will know the house plant Tradescantia as it will at some time have taken pride of place in our houses. This is a book about the man the plant was named after. It takes place in the early 1600's & is about a world seen through the eyes of John Tradescant. A man who for his day was extremely well travelled, at a time when new things including plants were being discovered alll the time.
As gardener to Sir Robert Cecil, for whom he designed a magnificent garden at Hatfield. Tradescant is in a privileged position, to see first hand the wind of change that is sweeping through the kingdom. He also has the necessary funds to scour the world for new & ever more exotic plans for the wonderful garden. Even bringing plants from as far away as Russia.
Moving on to the household of the Duke of Buckingham, he is even more blessed by his employer's thirst for the newest & the best that money can buy. While at the same time he can witness at first hand the growing rift between the parliament of the day & the people.
For those with an interest in plants this is a splendid book that they will absolutely love. For those who are not it is still an exceptionallly good historical novel & well worth reading.
Nicely done but a little repetitive in spots - By: Erastes, 04 Nov 2007 
I wouldn't say "if you aren't into gardening, don't get this," but you WILL appreciate it a lot more if you have an inkling of gardening & plants. It's the story of a very famous - & one of the first "celebrity" gardeners, John Tradescant who was a gardener to many famous people during the reign of three monarchs, Elizabeth I, James I & Charles I.
She paints a very believable picture of John, his family & his life. John is a man who must belong to a master, that's how his life has always been & that's how he thinks his life must always be. He starts the book in the employ of Robert Cecil, building the gardens of Hatfield House & he is very close - a confidante & friend - to the great man, after he dies, John moves around from master to master until he is ordered to the new & fabulous estate of George Villiers - first Duke of Buckingham, favourite of the then King, James I & the most powerful man in the land. It is in Villiers service that he discovers a lot about the meaning of loyalty & a lot about himself.
This is a "Romance" in both senses of the word, the author does a wonderful job telling a fair portion of Tradescant the Older's story, although missing out some portions of it, to my disappointment & amusingly missing out that he actuallly looked liked a pregnant goat, if the portraits of the day were to believed. It was easier NOT to look at what he looked like, then it would be easier to believe that the beautiful & notoriously bi-sexual George Villiers would want to bed him.
I enjoyed it a lot, however, more - it has to be said - for the fascinating insight into the introduction of plants into England (he brought the first six horse chestnut "conkers" back to England for example, & lost money in Tulipmania) - rather than for the homosexual story. However, the litery license that Gregory takes by assuming an affair with Villiers works perfectly within the character that she has drawn & it's a vital thread in the book.
Gregory writes convincingly & in a very approachable style although strangely I didn't get addicted to this book in ways that I have with others. There were some repetitive themes, where Tradescant bickers with his wife & I had no desperation to find out what happened next, even when I was in the early parts of the book. In fact it took me well over a month to read, while I read many other books in the interim.
Beautifully written from a depth of historical knowledge second to none - By: M. Cookson-carter, 12 Oct 2006 
Both Earthly Joys & Virgin Earth by Philippa Gregory are fantastic reads, which are a must for the reader of historical fiction & those with an interest in the development of british botanical specimin collections.
John Tradescant, gardner to the king, explorer & botanical collector was responsible for bringing a wide variety of plants to Britain, including the Horse Chestnut tree & was the benefactor responsible for the development of the Ashmolean Museum.
This book is about his voyages, his life in times of civil war & plague as well as global exploration & discovery. The sequel, the continuing tale of his son, who furthers his father's passion for collecting.
This was the frst Philippa Gregory book I read andwas hooked on her writing from then on. A great place to start & discover her style & depth of knowledge. Ideal for both male & female readers.
Forbidden Love in a Country in Turmoil - By: Debra Morse, 19 Aug 2006 I purchased Earthly Joys upon finishing The Other Boleyn Girl trilogy & realizing that after almost 2,000 nonstop pages of Philippa Gregory I still had not had enough. Earthly Joys moves the reader from the Tudor period into the Stuart era through the eyes of John Tradescant, a royal gardener who tends to his plants as though they were children. Indeed, sometimes better than his children. Devoted to his wife & family, Tradescant none the less finds himself smitten with the dashing & glamorous Lord Buckingham & is soon torn between the simple family homestead, & the opulent gardens of the king.
Written with her trademark amazing characterization & vivid attention to detail, Gregory brings to life the turbulent 17th century society of Charles I & impending revolution. Reading of those long ago political machinations, desperate economy, rising religious conservatism, & consequences of forbidden love makes one realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The faces have changed, but the scene is the same today.
