The Huntington Library: Treasures from Ten Centuries [Hardcover]

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0873282078 | ISBN-13: 978-0873282079 | Publication Date: June 2004

The Huntington is one of America’s premier cultural, research, and educational centers, with holdings that are among the most treasured artifacts of Western civilization. Its most famous treasures include a lavishly decorated fifteenth-century manuscript of Chaucer’s "Canterbury Tales," one of only eleven known vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible, Benjamin Franklin’s handwritten autobiography, a rare double-elephant folio of Audubon’s "Birds of America," and George Washington’s own survey of Mount Vernon. The collections comprise more than five million rare books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, prints, and ephemera, with extraordinary resources for the study of British and American history and literature, the history of science, and the history of printing. "The Huntington Library: Treasures from Ten Centuries" opens the doors of what is known as a scholar’s paradise, exploring the value of these holdings in history and for the present. Railroad and real estate developer Henry E. Huntington accumulated his world-class collections at a blistering pace early in the 20th century. In his introduction, Library Director David Zeidberg explains the unprecedented strategies Huntington used to acquire these extraordinary materials. In the following chapters, the curators present highlights from the collections of illuminated manuscripts, cartography, early printed books (those before 1500), paleography (the study of ancient handwriting), history of science, photography, American literature, and the California Gold Rush. This volume will appeal to those who want to know more about the Huntington Library as well as anyone interested in Anglo-American cultural history.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Zeidberg is Avery Director of the Huntington Library. Mary L. Robertson is the William A. Moffett Chief Curator of Manuscripts. John Rhodehamel is the Norris Foundation Curator of American Historical Manuscripts. Peter J. Blodgett is the H. Russell Smith Foundation Curator of Western American Manuscripts. Sara S. Hodson is the Curator of Literary Manuscripts. Stephen Tabor is the Curator of Early Printed Books. Alan Jutzi is the Chief Curator of Rare Books. Daniel Lewis is the Curator of the History of Science and Technology. Jennifer A. Watts is the Curator of Photographs. Cathy Cherbosque is the Curator of Historical Prints adn Ephemera. Bill Frank is the Curator of Hispanic, Cartographic and Western Historical Manuscripts. Robert C. Ritchie is the W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Near the end of Henry Huntington's life, someone asked him why he had never authorized a biography. He replied, "The Library will tell the story." What began as personal collecting on a modest scale blossomed into serious collecting in the antiquarian market during the first quarter of the twentieth century, and led to the formation of one of the world's major research centers for the study of Anglo-American culture, western Americana, and the history of science, medicine, and technology. Huntington's path from reader to collector to benefactor is a story of self-education, business success, indefatigable collecting, and ultimately, philanthropic responsibility.

Henry Edwards Huntington was born in Oneonta, New York, in 1850, the son of middle-class, mercantile parents. He was always an avid reader, though he had only a high school education; in later life he was often praised as a collector who knew and read his books. At age twenty, having tried his luck in his parents' hardware and dry goods business, he went to work for his uncle Collis P. Huntington, one of the owners of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads. Initially, he worked in a succession of mill companies in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania that made railroad ties for the westward-expanding railroads. To advance his fortune at one point, Huntington sold his first personal book collection to raise enough cash to buy out his business partner in one of these ventures. He went on to build a second reading library, composed mostly of sets of the writings of important contemporary authors, such as Dickens and Trollope. Many of these sets remain on display on the bookshelves in the large library room of the Huntington mansion.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Huntington Library Pr (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873282078
• ISBN-13: 978-0873282079
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars behind-the-scenes look at a scholars' paradise, July 31, 2008

By 

Jean Patterson (Pasadena, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Huntington Library: Treasures from Ten Centuries (Paperback)

The Huntington's most famous treasures include a lavishly decorated fifteenth-century manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, one of only eleven known vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible, Benjamin Franklin's handwritten autobiography, and a rare double-elephant folio of Audubon's Birds of America. The collections comprise more than five million rare books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, prints, and ephemera, with extraordinary resources for the study of British and American history and literature, the history of science, and the history of printing. The Huntington Library: Treasures from Ten Centuries opens the doors of a scholar's paradise, exploring the value of these holdings in history and for the present.