The Lotus Quest. In Search of the Sacred Flower

Griffiths, Mark

ISBN 10: 0701181222 / ISBN 13: 9780701181222

Published by Chatto & Windus / Random House, London, 2009

About this Item

First edition, first impression with full number line. Some slight edge wear to top and bottom of jacket and spine, corners slightly bruised, small dent to front jacket, not price clipped (£20.00), no inscriptions, internally clean tight and square, overall a vg++ copy. 338pp, illustrated. The Lotus is the world's most iconic flower. Galvanised by receiving seeds from a three thousand year old lotus, which flowered without difficulty in an English summer, Mark Griffiths set out to track the path of this sublime plant to its home in the Lotus Lands of Japan. His quest, from the basement of Burlington House in Piccadilly to a mountain top in northern Japan, involved many adventures and revealed extraordinary new material. The Lotus Quest touches on the lotus in ancient Egypt and India and on the plant's medicinal uses, as well as the inspiration it has provided to Western artists. Most of all, it unveils a stunning vision of Japan's feudal era, as Griffiths visits shrines, ruins, gardens and wild landscapes, and meets priests and archaeologists, philosophers and anthropologists, gardeners and botanists, poets and artists, and even dines on the lotus in a Tokyo café. By the end, when we reach the hauntingly beautiful Japanese temple of Chuson ji, we understand why this flower has been so intimately involved with human history at so many levels, over so vast an expanse of time. Beautifully illustrated, intensely atmospheric and full of suspense, The Lotus Quest shows how the deep crimson of the lotus runs like a tracer dye, tracking the spread, fusion and fission of the world's great civilizations.

Seller Inventory # 005777

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Lotus Quest. In Search of the Sacred Flower
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus / Random House, London
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0701181222
• ISBN 13: 9780701181222
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Jacket photo by Ogawa Kazuma
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

The Lotus is the world's most iconic flower. Galvanized by receiving seeds from a three-thousand-year-old lotus, which flowered without difficulty in an English summer, Mark Griffiths set out to track the path of this sublime plant to its home in the Lotus-Lands of Japan. His quest, from the basement of Burlington House in Piccadilly to a mountain top in northern Japan, involved many adventures and revealed extraordinary new material. "The Lotus Quest" touches on the lotus in ancient Egypt and India and on the plant's medicinal uses, as well as the inspiration it has provided to Western artists. Most of all, it unveils a stunning vision of Japan's feudal era, as Griffiths visits shrines, ruins, gardens and wild landscapes, and meets priests and archaeologists, philosophers and anthropologists, gardeners and botanists, poets and artists, and even dines on the lotus in a Tokyo cafe. By the end, when we reach the hauntingly beautiful Japanese temple of Chuson-ji, we understand why this flower has been so intimately involved with human history at so many levels, over so vast an expanse of time. Beautifully illustrated, intensely atmospheric and full of suspense, "The Lotus Quest" shows how the deep crimson of the lotus runs like a tracer dye, tracking the spread, fusion and fission of the world's great civilizations.

About the Author

Mark Griffiths is one of Britain's leading plant experts. He is Editor of The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening, the largest work on horticulture ever published, and the author or editor of numerous other books on gardening and botany. A Fellow of the Linnean Society, he has written regularly for The Times and now contributes to Country Life. He lives in Oxford.