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The Chinese Garden
Set in a repressive British girls’ boarding school in the late 1920s—where not only sexuality but femininity is squashed—Rosemary Manning’s wonderful 1962 novel is the coming-of-age story of sixteen-year-old Rachel, a sensitive, bright, and innocent student. Rachel finds refuge from the Spartan conditions, strict regime, fierce discipline, and formidable headmistress at Bampfield in a secret garden. She also finds friendship there, with a rebellious girl named Margaret. As Margaret has her mind expanded by a scandalous tome entitled The Well of Loneliness, she engages in a bold, forbidden act—the ultimate transgression at Bampfield—and Rachel is drawn into the turmoil. Confronted with the persecution of her friend and troubled by a growing awareness of her own sensuality, Rachel faces an impossible choice that drives her to desperate measures.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
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About the author
Rosemary Manning
33 books12 followersRosemary Joy Manning was a British author of both adult and children's books. Her best-known novel is The Chinese Garden, considered by some to be an important lesbian book. She was also well known for her popular Dragon children's series. She was also well known for her popular Dragon children's series. She was also known by the pseudonyms Sarah Davys and Mary Voyle.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 reviews
March 18, 2025
Rachel attends the rigid, brutal school Bampfield in the 1920s. Isolated by the strict regime, she finds solace in books, and most particularly the beautiful park which surrounds the school. She forms attachments to various teachers, who admire her intellectual curiosity or her tenacious spirit, but her friendships with the other girls are difficult and fraught. The Chinese Garden of the title is a decaying pleasure-ground, created by lost aristocrats, and locked away from the pupils. Rachel finds her way there, and falls in love with the strange beauty of the mushroom-scented, crumbling pagodas and overgrown bushes. But the decaying grounds are a mirror for the corruption at the heart of Rachel's school: her teachers are hypocrites, playing with their students' emotions, and forcing them to endure an unnecessary and cruel physical punishments and deprivations. This atmosphere comes to a head when one of Rachel's classmates is found naked, in bed with another girl.
I was hugely impressed by this book. Its evocation of atmosphere is impressive: the crumbling old mansion, the overgrown trees, the sound of deer and birds, coupled with the spartan austerity of the school, create a unique sensory world. This atmosphere also reflects the sexual awakening of the characters, their confusion and the intolerance they experience. Much is implied in this book -- Manning is careful in what she says directly but she still gets across the lesbianism of the teachers and their total hypocrisy in response to the sexual awakening of their students. The narrative treats the young protagonists with kindness and tolerance: their actions are not seen as wrong; the fault is with adults who unfairly punish and expel them. In that sense this story is very progressive. It's also a hugely appealing novel about intellectual pursuits, and the solace and beauty of nature. Highly recommended.
I was hugely impressed by this book. Its evocation of atmosphere is impressive: the crumbling old mansion, the overgrown trees, the sound of deer and birds, coupled with the spartan austerity of the school, create a unique sensory world. This atmosphere also reflects the sexual awakening of the characters, their confusion and the intolerance they experience. Much is implied in this book -- Manning is careful in what she says directly but she still gets across the lesbianism of the teachers and their total hypocrisy in response to the sexual awakening of their students. The narrative treats the young protagonists with kindness and tolerance: their actions are not seen as wrong; the fault is with adults who unfairly punish and expel them. In that sense this story is very progressive. It's also a hugely appealing novel about intellectual pursuits, and the solace and beauty of nature. Highly recommended.
June 8, 2018
The Chinese Garden is the story of Rachel’s (who is based on Rosemary Manning herself) time at Bampfield, a girls’ college that the reader soon come to realize to be a place where “cruelty dwelt under the guise of discipline, and corruption beneath a mask of beauty and moral tone”. It’s a bildungsroman, told by an older Rachel that has gained a better understanding (as it is often the case when looking back at a certain distance) yet not fully conscious either. I related a lot to the protagonist herself, but also to the dual feeling towards an institution you believe to belong to, but that condemns part of who you are, and the resulting interior struggle.
The prose is fluid and elegant (though there are some confusing POV shifts), the afterword by Patricia Juliana Smith is worth praising as well, and it’s fascinating to see what impact a book that represents a certain reality can have, perhaps because it validates said reality – just like Margaret found joy in reading The Well of Loneliness.
The prose is fluid and elegant (though there are some confusing POV shifts), the afterword by Patricia Juliana Smith is worth praising as well, and it’s fascinating to see what impact a book that represents a certain reality can have, perhaps because it validates said reality – just like Margaret found joy in reading The Well of Loneliness.
May 30, 2014
Utterly dreary. The afterword (by Patricia Juliana Smith), which places the book in the larger context of lesbian literature is rather more interesting than the novel itself. I did like the description of the titular garden however, and would love to discover such a place myself.
April 22, 2021
3,5 stars. My thoughts: https://theblankgarden.com/2021/04/22...
January 29, 2016
The scene of the story is Bampfield College, the time the late 1920's. The main characters include Margaret, Rachel, who is 16, and Bistro, who is 15. A woman named Chief is the head of the college. She has a very mannish appearance.
The college is only for girls, and it is in terrible physical shape. Bad food, unheated rooms, and filth seem to characterize the school. The girls are treated in a very harsh manner, the people running the school basically trying to turn them into perfect young gentlemen.
In some ways the exercises they put the girls through in bad weather, and the general condition of the school remind me of old Japanese schools that were run in a military fashion. Things could get to be harsh, even cruel.
Rachel finds the Chinese Garden, which had been Margaret's secret. As time goes on, Rachel becomes a prefect at the school.
Then things go really bad, when Margaret and another girl are caught in bed together nude, and are expelled. Rachel comes under suspicion of possibly being a lesbian. She tries to commit suicide by hanging herself, but it doesn't work.
Eventually she's cleared.
The book also has an appendix, which is a history of the book and its place in lesbian fiction.
Which brings me to my comments. The book is written in a very old style of writing; very, very descriptive, very flowery, with many references to poetry and poets. It makes things seem quite real.
As to the connection of this book and lesbian fiction, I'll note that it is not until page 96 of the book that there is anything at all specifically relating to lesbian, and that is a reference to the book The Well of Loneliness. Then it is page 144 before any actual lesbian acts are even referred to, and this is when the adults say that Margaret and the other girl were caught in bed together, nude.
Most of the book deals with the incredibly harsh conditions at the school. Some people might assume that some of the adult women that run the school are having physical relationships, but that would be an assumption not based on anything specific. As as girl-girl “friendships” go, there is a very limited number of these in any form.
It's an interesting book, but not what I would consider real “lesbian fiction.”
The college is only for girls, and it is in terrible physical shape. Bad food, unheated rooms, and filth seem to characterize the school. The girls are treated in a very harsh manner, the people running the school basically trying to turn them into perfect young gentlemen.
In some ways the exercises they put the girls through in bad weather, and the general condition of the school remind me of old Japanese schools that were run in a military fashion. Things could get to be harsh, even cruel.
Rachel finds the Chinese Garden, which had been Margaret's secret. As time goes on, Rachel becomes a prefect at the school.
Then things go really bad, when Margaret and another girl are caught in bed together nude, and are expelled. Rachel comes under suspicion of possibly being a lesbian. She tries to commit suicide by hanging herself, but it doesn't work.
Eventually she's cleared.
The book also has an appendix, which is a history of the book and its place in lesbian fiction.
Which brings me to my comments. The book is written in a very old style of writing; very, very descriptive, very flowery, with many references to poetry and poets. It makes things seem quite real.
As to the connection of this book and lesbian fiction, I'll note that it is not until page 96 of the book that there is anything at all specifically relating to lesbian, and that is a reference to the book The Well of Loneliness. Then it is page 144 before any actual lesbian acts are even referred to, and this is when the adults say that Margaret and the other girl were caught in bed together, nude.
Most of the book deals with the incredibly harsh conditions at the school. Some people might assume that some of the adult women that run the school are having physical relationships, but that would be an assumption not based on anything specific. As as girl-girl “friendships” go, there is a very limited number of these in any form.
It's an interesting book, but not what I would consider real “lesbian fiction.”
May 1, 2023
A philosophical question ambled through my brain as I worked my way through The Chinese Garden (the book, not an actual...) - why do we read?
Not as in the actual skill, that's just one of life's essentials to help you get through the day.
No, why do we read books? Enjoyment? Fulfilment? Enrichment? Knowledge?
I ask because halfway through this surprisingly short book I was genuinely wondering why I was still turning the pages.
Partly it was because Rosemary Manning is one of my all-time favourite authors. Her Dragon series of books (starting with Green Smoke) made my early years on this planet enjoyable. So I felt a sense of loyalty to her writing.
Then there was the fact, that having read a few paragraphs of the Afterword, I had learnt how important a book this was.
The Chinese Garden is one of the cornerstones of Lesbian Literature.
Granted not a genre, as an ageing straight man, I'm overly familiar with, but one I learnt a lot about both while reading this book and the notes after.
In many ways, I think it would have been better if I'd read the Afterword first.
For a start, it would have helped to understand many of the references, because without a working knowledge of Samual Taylor Coleridge's best known works - and The Classics (Manning was a Classics scholar, as is the central character Rachel) - you will probably struggle.
The Biblical references and imagery are a bit easier to grasp, and the book makes slightly more sense once you've managed to place it historically (again, knowledge is required - if you don't know about The Well of Loneliness, the obscenity trial, and when it all took place you've no chance).
But the biggest - actually, only, really - problem is the switching between first and third person narratives.
Chapter to chapter is fine, and can work very effectively, but within chapters, paragraph to paragraph, it can really throw the unwary reader, leading one to ponder if it's an editing or rewriting error.
Reading the notes, it turns out to be another classic literary device Manning lifted - so again, if you didn't know that....
But cutting through all the smoke and mirrors of great literature - which this book undoubtedly is - The Chinese Garden is a fantastic book. Both historically and culturally, but also as a story.
Semi-autobiographical, it tells of a young girl (Rachel) in the final years at an austere boarding school run by Chief.
Rachel is intelligent but naïve, and so a lot of what she sees she doesn't understand - even if we do.
It's about sexual awakenings, society, being gay at a time when it was far from acceptable, and is looked at both in the moment and with the benefit of hindsight as Rachel reflects back on her years at the school.
It's quite impressive how, not knowing what to expect going in, this book still managed to not be what I was expecting.
But wrapped up in the high-thinking, big references, and classic literary tropes is a compelling tale of a young woman growing up, learning who she is - but also, more importantly, what the world is and where she may or may not fit in to it.
Not as in the actual skill, that's just one of life's essentials to help you get through the day.
No, why do we read books? Enjoyment? Fulfilment? Enrichment? Knowledge?
I ask because halfway through this surprisingly short book I was genuinely wondering why I was still turning the pages.
Partly it was because Rosemary Manning is one of my all-time favourite authors. Her Dragon series of books (starting with Green Smoke) made my early years on this planet enjoyable. So I felt a sense of loyalty to her writing.
Then there was the fact, that having read a few paragraphs of the Afterword, I had learnt how important a book this was.
The Chinese Garden is one of the cornerstones of Lesbian Literature.
Granted not a genre, as an ageing straight man, I'm overly familiar with, but one I learnt a lot about both while reading this book and the notes after.
In many ways, I think it would have been better if I'd read the Afterword first.
For a start, it would have helped to understand many of the references, because without a working knowledge of Samual Taylor Coleridge's best known works - and The Classics (Manning was a Classics scholar, as is the central character Rachel) - you will probably struggle.
The Biblical references and imagery are a bit easier to grasp, and the book makes slightly more sense once you've managed to place it historically (again, knowledge is required - if you don't know about The Well of Loneliness, the obscenity trial, and when it all took place you've no chance).
But the biggest - actually, only, really - problem is the switching between first and third person narratives.
Chapter to chapter is fine, and can work very effectively, but within chapters, paragraph to paragraph, it can really throw the unwary reader, leading one to ponder if it's an editing or rewriting error.
Reading the notes, it turns out to be another classic literary device Manning lifted - so again, if you didn't know that....
But cutting through all the smoke and mirrors of great literature - which this book undoubtedly is - The Chinese Garden is a fantastic book. Both historically and culturally, but also as a story.
Semi-autobiographical, it tells of a young girl (Rachel) in the final years at an austere boarding school run by Chief.
Rachel is intelligent but naïve, and so a lot of what she sees she doesn't understand - even if we do.
It's about sexual awakenings, society, being gay at a time when it was far from acceptable, and is looked at both in the moment and with the benefit of hindsight as Rachel reflects back on her years at the school.
It's quite impressive how, not knowing what to expect going in, this book still managed to not be what I was expecting.
But wrapped up in the high-thinking, big references, and classic literary tropes is a compelling tale of a young woman growing up, learning who she is - but also, more importantly, what the world is and where she may or may not fit in to it.
September 12, 2024
I was not expecting a random book I picked up in a secondhand bookstore in New York to be as good as this was?
I also was not expecting this novel to have undisguised lesbian characters in it; according to the notes in the back it was written in the “Dark age of lesbian literature”. Not only are there lesbian characters, there’s clear references to other lesbian literature, such as “the well of loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall.
“The well of loneliness” is not the only intertextual reference in this book. In fact, the book has references and quotes carefully woven into every chapter in a very fitting way, so it does not read as the author flaunting her intelligence. Not that I would blame her for that, she’s clearly very well-read.
Rachel is a very well-written protagonist. She has her flaws and she knows it, which is why you keep sympathizing with her even if she is clearly in the wrong. I can really appreciate that she is not a black and white character.
I also was not expecting this novel to have undisguised lesbian characters in it; according to the notes in the back it was written in the “Dark age of lesbian literature”. Not only are there lesbian characters, there’s clear references to other lesbian literature, such as “the well of loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall.
“The well of loneliness” is not the only intertextual reference in this book. In fact, the book has references and quotes carefully woven into every chapter in a very fitting way, so it does not read as the author flaunting her intelligence. Not that I would blame her for that, she’s clearly very well-read.
Rachel is a very well-written protagonist. She has her flaws and she knows it, which is why you keep sympathizing with her even if she is clearly in the wrong. I can really appreciate that she is not a black and white character.
February 13, 2018
Another gay boarding school novel, and one that benefits from having experience with the genre. (It’s litter with in jokes and references that easily slip by: most people will get, say, the inclusion of Radcliff Hall, but only a reader with experience in the gay-boarding-school field will pick up the namedropping of greats such as Clemence Dane, or my beloved Mädchen in Uniform.) It’s quite self-aware—flipping between 1st and 3rd person, for example, as well as highlighting and deliberately subverting expected tropes. Not much happens, but it happens very beautifully.
October 17, 2021
Quick, short, to the point (which is super subtle). I sometimes forget how spoiled I am, with the wealth of LGBTQ literature available now. This was written when being gay was still taboo as hell, so the gayness is too subtle for my taste. BUT I appreciate it for being a classic lesbian novella. (Novel maybe? It seemed pretty short.) Manning uses an incredible wealth of words I had to look up - which I love - and she paints the setting really well.
October 8, 2021
Such pleasingly tight and intelligent prose that you find rarely. The passage describing a typical sermon in chapel had real power, I felt a rising disgust reading it.
Pure conjecture: if this were written by a male author about a boy's school, it wouldn't be out of print.
Pure conjecture: if this were written by a male author about a boy's school, it wouldn't be out of print.
August 16, 2022
Not wholly the book I was envisioning but great all the same. Intimate female friendships are ruined in a school that hates femininity whilst the protagonist ignores her sexuality in the pursuit of intellect as her classmate defies rules with her own queerness and desire for freedom.
April 9, 2018
This book is mostly atmospheric/symbolic so it kind of drags in places but it is short and I love a girl's school setting.
August 15, 2019
If there's one thing I can say in the positive it's that the author knew how to build an atmosphere with her writing. It just happened to be a depressing atmosphere that NEVER relented. Ever.
January 17, 2021
Excellent read, British boarding school with many secret gardens, and friendship for a girl who is at times at odds with schoolmates....
June 24, 2022
While it’s extremely well written, I was conscious of it being very dated. In a historical context, studying what was available at the time, I see it’s value.
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November 28, 2023The writing is beautiful but damn is this exhausting to read. I wish the story could have been less torturous.
October 28, 2019
I loved this so freaking much. I usually dislike historical fiction but apparently a gay (not very secret) plot twist and mental health issues included in the book changed my mind.
September 24, 2014
This book was a slow read, although the contradictions and hypocrisy found in words, philosophy, and actions kept me turning the pages. I was keen to understand the meaning behind the words, interactions, and friendships. The "afterward" by Patricia Juliana Smith helped put the story in context as the novel takes place around 1925 and depicts the intolerance and ostracism of lesbians. For me, the numerous themes were conflicting and confusing -- a female boarding school with male overtones, repressed or "behind closed doors" homoeroticism, intolerance, and exploitation. While the themes are confusing in 2014, not so in 1925.
January 19, 2010
Rachel Curgenven attends a very strict girls' school. When her close friend Margaret is found in bed with another pupil, Rena, Rachel is accused of helping them. Considerably more frank than most school stories, this book is intended for adults.
December 19, 2021
The prose flows well, the descriptions are lovely, and I feel like there is more to discover in the story. I related to both Rachel and Margaret, and while Bisto's character disgusted me more than anything due to her childish puppydog worship of Rachel, I understood her to some extent.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 reviews