Well known for her books on the historical performance of music, Judy Tarling has applied her knowledge of classical rhetoric to a ground-breaking study of the creation and reception of the landscape garden in eighteenth-century England. Using the principles of rhetoric which were shared by the artist, poet and musician in the eighteenth century to engage with their audiences, she convincingly compares the methods by which the landscape garden designers controlled the movements, emotions and imaginations of garden visitors with those used by a successful orator. Texts by contemporary garden designers and tourists reveal that the effects of deception, surprise, mystery, horror and delight were all carefully calculated to entertain the garden visitor and persuade them of the good taste, learning and occasionally, the political views of the garden creator.