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Extra-illustrated set of The Writings of John Muir: Finding
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646274
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Title: Extra-illustrated set of The Writings of John Muir.
Dates (inclusive): 1916-1924
Collection Number: 646274
Creator:
Muir, John, 1838-1914.
Extent:
10 volumes
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Rare Books Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2191
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection consists of an extra-illustrated set of the
The Writings of John Muir : Manuscript Edition
(Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1916-1924), which includes 260 platinum prints chiefly by photographer Herbert W. Gleason (1855-1937) and
ten manuscript fragments in John Muir's hand from a draft of his work,
The Mountains of California.
Language: English.
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader
Services.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities.
The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the
researcher.
[Identification of item]. Extra-illustrated set of
The Writings of John Muir, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Purchased by the Library Collectors' Council from Jeff Weber Rare Books, January 14, 2017.
Biographical Note for John Muir
John Muir (1838-1914) was a naturalist, conservationist, and author. His published works include:
The Mountains of California,
Our National Parks,
The Yosemite, and
My First Summer in the Sierra.
Biographical Note for Herbert Wendell Gleason
Herbert Wendell Gleason (1855-1937) was a photographer, naturalist, and lecturer. Gleason was born in Malden, Massachusetts,
and,
between 1883 and 1899, spent sixteen years in Minnesota as a Congregational minister and editor of the
Northwest
Congregationalist
(retitled
The Kingdom in 1894)
before returning to Massachusetts, where he began photographing sites related to the naturalist writer Henry David Thoreau.
In 1903, the Houghton Mifflin Company approached Gleason
to illustrate a forthcoming edition of Thoreau's collected works using Gleason's photographs as photogravures. In subsequent
years, Gleason's photographs would
later be used to illustrate deluxe editions of the collected writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Muir, and others. Gleason
spent many summers
photographing the mountain regions and national parks of the American West and had a friendship with Muir.
This collection consists of an extra-illustrated set of the 10-volume
The Writings of John Muir : Manuscript
Edition
(Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916-1924),
identified as set number 126 of 750 (of the standard edition).
Tipped into each volume is:
- A manuscript fragment from a draft of "The Glacier Meadow," chapter 7 in The Mountains of California in John Muir's hand.
- A hand-colored photogravure frontispiece of one of the illustrations within the volume.
- 26 to 27 additional platinum prints, each preceded by a page containing a typescript title and corresponding quotation from the text.
The added images (in addition to the 114 photogravure plates originally included with the set) include 260 platinum photographic
prints
chiefly by photographer Herbert W. Gleason (1855-1937), which correspond to the text. Images
chiefly consist of landscapes related to Muir's travels and writings about the American West, including Alaska, California,
Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and
Washington; as well as close-up photographs of animals and plants. While
most of the images depict natural scenery, there are a few photographs of Muir or specific buildings or individuals related
to his life, as well as
two photographs each depicting an unidentified man and woman:
"Agate Stumps in Yellowstone Park" (Volume 6, facing page 68) and "An Artesian Well. [Part of the water supply of the city
of Ogden, Utah]" (volume 8, facing page 162).
The compiler of this extra-illustrated set is unidentified but may have been Gleason. There are similarities between some
of the typescript titles
and the original envelope titles created by Gleason for his negatives in the Robbins-Mills Collection of Herbert Wendell Gleason
Photographic Negatives at the Concord Free Public Library.
Each copyright page has the printed text "Edition Limited to Seven Hundred and Fifty Copies This is Number 126." All
of the volumes are stamped on the verso of flyleaf, "Bound at the Riverside Press."
- Robbins-Mills Collection of Herbert Wendell Gleason Photographic Negatives, Concord Free Public Library — Special Collections
- The writings of Henry David Thoreau [Manuscript edition] (Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1906) (Call number: 646272)
The volumes are arranged by volume number.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection
in the
Huntington Library's Online Catalog.
Muir, John, 1838-1914 -- Photographs.
Muir, John, 1838-1914 -- Homes and haunts -- Photographs.
Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.) -- Description and travel.
Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.) -- Photographs.
Alaska -- Description and travel.
Alaska -- Photographs.
California -- Description and travel.
California -- Photographs.
National parks and reserves -- United States.
National parks and reserves -- Photographs.
Extra-illustrated copies (Provenance).
Limitation statements (Publishing) -- United States -- 20th century
Photographs.
Photogravures (prints).
Platinum prints.
Badè, William Frederic, 1871-1936, editor.
Gleason, Herbert Wendell, 1855-1937, photographer.
Riverside Press (Cambridge, Mass.), binder.