Letters from the Lighthouse: Travel Edition: The Huntington Library and Gardens

Sunday August 24

After a lazy Sunday morning just hanging out at Corey's apartment, we decided not to head to the coast as it would probably be mobbed with drivers and people, we headed to Pasadena to visit the Huntington Library and Gardens. Corey has been there several times, including the one and only other time I've been there. We figured if it got too hot we'd just hang out in the different "museums" and "exhibits."

The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington. In addition to the library, the institution houses an extensive art collection with a focus in 18th- and 19th-century European art and 17th- to mid-20th-century American art. The property also includes approximately 120 acres of specialized botanical gardens, most notably the Japanese Garden, the Desert Garden, and the Chinese Garden.

Loved this pomegranate tree!

THE CORPSE FLOWER
As soon as we arrived we headed to the gardens to see a very rare occurrence. Native to the equatorial rain forests of Sumatra, the Amorphophallus titanum, or Titan Arum, can reach more than 6 feet in height when it blooms, opening to a diameter of 3–4 feet. But the plant is perhaps most famous—or infamous—for its exceptionally foul odor. Hence the nickname, Corpse Flower. A Titan Arum in bloom is as rare as it is spectacular. A plant can go for many years without flowering, and when it does the bloom lasts only one or two days. This was the fifth Amorphophallus titanum to bloom at The Huntington. We could hardly see it for all the people gathered around it. It's a good thing we went this weekend and didn't wait until next, because it was in full bloom on Saturday night and was already starting to close up by the time we arrived on Sunday. Really cool!

The Corpse Flower

A Pitcher Flower

See the new growth? I loved that little guy!

THE HUNTINGTON GARDENS: THE CHINESE GARDEN

We didn't stay long in the sauna-like greenhouse and moved on to some galleries and gardens. A new edition since the last time I was at the Huntington is the Chinese Garden. I totally remember how much I loved the Japanese Garden last time (we didn't get to it this time) so I had a feeling the Chinese Garden would be equally lovely. It's so new that they are still developing and expanding it. But what a lovely, serene garden.

Behind the waterfall.

Taking a breather in the shade.

THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY: RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS

I don't remember this from my last visit to the Huntington, but the Library was fascinating. I could have spent many more hours in there. One of the Library’s most prized works is this first folio edition of William Shakespeare’s collected plays, published in 1623, seven years after his death. The First Folio contains thirty-six plays, eighteen of them printed for the first time. This “authorized version,” prepared by his friends and colleagues from “true originall copies,” is the prime source of our knowledge of Shakespeare’s texts. I could not get a decent picture of the First Folio, but it was so cool to view.

The First Folio - Shakespeare

The Tempest

Hamlet

Johann Gutenberg’s Bible was the first substantial book printed with movable type in the West. Printed about 1450-55 in Mainz, Germany, the Bible is in Latin, in the standard medieval Catholic version known as the Vulgate. Only the text, in type called black letter, or gothic, was printed with movable type. The Huntington copy is one of eleven surviving copies printed on vellum, and one of three such copies in the United States.

Beautiful!

The Gutenberg Bible

The rare book collection includes printed books from the 15th through the 20th centuries. The collection also houses maps, broadsides, pamphlets, newspapers, and many other printed formats. These collections of about 375,000 items are concentrated in the field of British and American culture with many topics and periods covered in extraordinary depth. The Huntington also has the second-largest collection of incunabula in the United States, after the Library of Congress. The term designates books printed before 1501 during the infancy, or “in the cradle,” of the new technology of the printing press.

The Ellesmere manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, c. 1400-1405. This page shows an introduction to The Knight's Tale.

A royal proclamation by King James I of Scotland against weaponry.

The "newe Testament" - William Tyndale, Antwerp 1534

The first printed edition of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy - 1472

If you've been reading my posts you'll know that I've been listening to the audio book Inferno (by Dan Brown) and this text is the center of the story!

Henry David Thoreau - Walden / Life In the Woods - autographed manuscript

Map of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) - Ferdinand Cortes, presented to Charles V 1524

Rome, 1613 - Galileo Galelei - Account & observations regarding sunspots

Lute music composed by John Dowland - London, 1603

A letter written by President Abraham Lincoln to Nathaniel P. Banks, head of the Union military command in Louisiana, urging Banks to expedite a new constitution outlawing slavery in Louisiana.

Autographed manuscript - Mark Twain's The Private History of the Jumping Frog Story, 1894

The June 14, 1383 letter of attorney seen here documents that Margaret Shaffeild, a widow, could lawfully control a Yorkshire manor and its lands.

In this letter dated November 5, 1872 to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony confesses that she has just illegally cast a vote in the presidential election.

Autographed manuscript of White Fang by Jack London - 1905

Autographed manuscript - The Story of an Eyewitness - Jack London's description of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake ran in the trade Collier's Weekly two-and-a-half weeks after the event. This was the first published account of the earthquake.

A letter, dated May 4, 1643, from Charles I to Henry Hastings, sheriff of Leicestershire.

English author Charles Dickens' letter to artist Hablot Knight Browne giving him detailed instructions for illustrating Nicholas Nickleby, published in 1839.