Kew Gardens

“Kew Gardens” is a short story by British author Virginia Woolf, published privately in 1919 before appearing in Monday or Tuesday, Woolf’s 1921 collection of short stories. The story explores themes such as Moments of Being, The Connection Between Humanity and Nature, and Interpersonal Conflict.

This guide refers to the version of “Kew Gardens” available in Project Gutenberg’s online edition of Monday or Tuesday.

The story follows four pairs of people as they wander Kew Gardens, a real-life botanical garden in London, on a July day. Their conversations are intercut with descriptions of the garden’s plants and animals, including a snail that is referred to repeatedly. The story uses a third-person omniscient point of view that shifts focus between different characters and areas within the garden.

The story begins by describing a flowerbed in the garden. Dew on the flowers refracts light, and the colors are distributed into the surrounding space “into the eyes of the men and women who walk in Kew Gardens” (84). For most of the story, the setting remains near this flowerbed as the narrator describes the people who pass it.