In the years between the wars Norah Bourke Lindsay (1873-1948) hugely influenced the course of garden design and planting. She developed her skills in her own magical garden at the Manor House, Sutton Courtenay in Oxfordshire, widely regarded as the most beautiful garden in England. Then, in 1924, facing financial ruin after the collapse of her marriage, she embarked upon a career as a garden designer. Her commissions ranged from the gardens of quiet English manor houses to the grand estates of the country house set, to royal gardens in Italy, France and Yugoslavia. She designed gardens for Nancy Astor at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, the Prince of Wales at Fort Belvedere in Windsor Great Park, the Horners at Mells in Somerset, Nancy Lancaster at both Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire and Ditchley in Oxfordshire, Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan in France, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia at Bled, Princess Aspasia at the Palazzo Contanini Accademia in Venice, and Prince Otto von Bismarck at Friedrichsruh in Germany. She worked with her friend Lawrence Johnston to create the great garden at Hidcote in Gloucestershire. She successfully and deftly gardened in different soils and varied climates across all of England and throughout Europe. All this time she managed to give the impression that she remained 'a social butterfly, a gadfly'. The truth is that although she dined at the tables of the rich, the next day she would be up at dawn to work with their gardeners. She wrote wistfully to her sister 'I am a tired and cold business woman! I used to adore lying in bed in a hot bedroom and having nothing to do.' Nevertheless, it is for her gifted creativity, and her productivity, that we admire her today. This is the biography of a remarkable garden designer. It captures her life, work and times. It includes more than 300 intriguing photographs that show her gardens, her plantings, and her friends.