Background
Gardner was born in 1873 at Roehampton Lane in London.
Gardner was born in 1873 at Roehampton Lane in London.
Gardner studied the Polish language and literature after being intrigued at school by Bonnie Prince Charlie"s mother who was the Polish aristocrat Clementina Sobieska.
Her brother was the Italian scholar Edmund Garratt Gardner. In 1899 she began to get assistance in her obsession for Polish and Poland by the writer Edmund Naganowski. He was able to support her until the First World War prevented further communication.
Naganowski was to die in 1915.
Gardner taught herself how to research sources in Polish and how to find out more about Poland. Her first monograph in 1911 was on Adam Mickiewicz who was regarded as the national poet of Poland.
She followed this with more books on her single theme. She was known as one of the few English speaking writers who studied Polish literature and history.
They visited Poznań and Cracow.
She wrote the The Patriot Novelist of Poland: Henryk Sienkiewicz in 1926. The latter was said to have been published to coincide with the return of Sienkiewicz"s body from Switzerland to be encrypted in Warsaw Cathedral. Monica"s knowledge and expertise made their house a place to visit by notable visiting Poles.
With the outbreak of World War Two, which Britain entered after the German invasion of Poland, Gardner"s expertise became more important.
She died as a result of a German land mine which landed on her house. One of her manuscripts was recovered from the bomb site, but another was lost.
Gardner"s funeral was an important event that was attended by the President of Poland, Władysław Raczkiewicz.
She wrote Poland: a Study in National Idealism in 1915 and The Anonymous Poet of Poland: Zygmunt Krasiński in 1919.
