Sarah Rutherford is a Kew-trained gardener with an MA in the conservation of historic parks and gardens from York University. She worked for English Heritage assessing sites across England for the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, becoming Head of the Register. During this time she researched and completed her doctoral thesis on the landscapes of nineteenth-century lunatic asylums. She is now an enthusiastic freelance consultant researching and writing conservation plans for parks and gardens. She lives in Buckinghamshire.

• Introduction: Elysian Fields /Origins /Creating the Garden Cemetery /John Claudius Loudon /The Great Garden of Death, 1850–1901 /Paradise Preserved? The Cemeteries Today /Further Reading /Places to Visit /Index