Throughout his varied life - which has included the Cambridge Footlights, theatrical set design in Paris and landscape design all over the world - Laurence Fleming has been an author. His first novel won the Artemis Prize in 1959 (judged by Angus Wilson, Nancy Mitford and Penelope Mortimer). Since then, his credits include: the bestselling The English Garden (Michael Joseph, 1979), Old English Villages (Weidenfeld, 1986) and Roberto Burle Marx: a Portrait (Editora Index, 1996).