Verso

The concept for the book Civil Wars: A History in Ideas, David Armitage's examination of bloody conflicts from ancient times to the present, germinated in the idyllic surroundings of The Huntington.

Haiku is arguably the best-known form of poetry in the United States. Nearly every schoolchild in the U.S. has attempted to write a poem in three lines of seventeen syllables, arranged in the now familiar 5-7-5 syllable pattern.

Martin Folkes was perhaps the best-connected and most versatile natural philosopher and antiquary of his age, an epitome of Enlightenment sociability, yet he is today a surprisingly neglected figure.

Before I saw The Nativity by Edward Burne-Jones, I asked myself if The Huntington really needed another design for a piece of 19th-century decorative art? We already had more than 1,000 drawings for wallpapers, carpets

Before Phillip E. Bloom applied to become The Huntington's Curator of the Chinese Garden, he spent two days exploring and contemplating Liu Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance—first alone and later with his wife, Yurika Wakamatsu, who had just taken a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Occidental College.

When Akira Chiba, the consul general of Japan in Los Angeles, came to visit The Huntington, he had an opportunity to look at one of the Library's recent acquisitions—a guest book that contains the signature of one of his illustrious forebears.

What do a zebra and a musical genius have in common? In the case of George Stubbs’ painting Zebra and Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait of his friend, the composer and musician Karl Friedrich Abel, there is, surprisingly, more than one connection.

As The Huntington's curator of desert collections, I, along with my staff, care for 2,000 species of succulents, including a vast range of cacti, in the 10-acre Desert Garden, plus thousands more in 20,000 square feet of greenhouse and other nursery space.