Audubon, John James

The Birds of America, from Drawings made in the United States and their Territories. New York: Published by J. J. Audubon; Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier, 1840–1844



7 volumes, in 4s (10⅜ x 6½ in.; 262 x 164 mm). 500 very fine handcolored lithographed plates after Audubon by W. E. Hitchcock, R. Trembly, and others, printed and colored by J. T. Bowen, numerous wood-engraved anatomical figures in text, half-titles, cumulative lists of subscribers in each volume; text foxed, plates generally very clean and bright. Contemporary half green morocco over marbled boards, spines gilt-lettered and black-tooled in five compartments, marbled endpapers, red-sprinkled edges; extremities rubbed.

Ayer/Zimmer 22; Fried, Appendix A; McGill/Wood 208; Reese American Color Plate Books 34; Sabin 2364; cf. Tyler, Audubon's Great National Work

First "octavo" edition: the "best of pre-Civil War American lithography" (Tyler). All of the birds from Audubon's original folio aquatints were reproduced by camera lucida for lithography by the artist's son, John Wodehouse Audubon. Seven new species are figured, and seventeen others previously described in the Ornithological Biography but not illustrated and also depicted for the first time. All of the plates are systematically rearranged and renumbered to accord with the text. An attractive set.