Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect
Charles W. Eliot


Reprint of 1902 edition, with a new introduction by
Keith N. Morgan
ASLA Centennial Reprint Series

Published by University of Massachusetts Press in association with LALH

$50.00

To order: University of Massachusetts Press,
tel. 800-537-5487, fax 410-516-6998

"The book is a classic, the expression of enduring landscape values despite nearly a century of evolutionary changes in the profession. . . . [Morgan’s is] a fine essay, scrupulously fair and illuminating.”—Melanie L. Simo, Journal of the New England Garden History Society

DESPITE HIS TRAGIC EARLY DEATH, Charles Eliot (1859–1897) was one of this country’s most influential landscape architects. A talented designer and highly effective champion of open space, Eliot pioneered many of the principles of regional planning. He also established the Trustees of Reservations, helped lay out the Boston Metropolitan Park System, and wrote prolifically on a host of topics, including early American landscape history.

This is a rare example of a filial biography, written by Eliot’s father (then president of Harvard) five years after his son’s death at age thirty-eight. Charles Eliot emerges from these pages as a brilliant though melancholy young man with a passion for travel, history, and the natural landscape. A substantive new introduction by Keith N. Morgan fills in the gaps left by Eliot’s father and offers a critical reading of Eliot’s life and contributions to the fields of landscape architecture and regional planning. The new edition includes large fold-out maps reproduced from the original.