In a Strange Garden - The Life and Times of Truby King

Penguin Books, 2003, 283 pages. Fading to spine, crease across bottom corner of back page, minor signs of secondhand wear.

Truby King has touched the lives of most New Zealanders. Founder of the Plunket movement that led our mothers and grandmothers into military-style baby management, his influence is enormous. Although his extreme and restrictive views about women would be ridiculed today, he gave them a health regime that dramatically reduced child mortality and was the envy of the world. But who was Truby King? While researching roses grown in France over a hundred years ago, Lloyd Chapman kept stumbling over the name 'Truby King' in nursery records and soon discovered that King was a manic gardener who had imported thousands of plants from Europe. This was the start of a trail that led Chapman all around New Zealand, from abandoned model farms and goldmines to mental institutes and museums, in search of the enigmatic King - scientist, farmer, husband, father, famous baby doctor. The compelling portrait of a truly eccentric but gifted man.