THE BIRDS OF AMERICA, FROM DRAWINGS MADE IN THE UNITED STATES AND THEIR TERRITORIES.

Audubon, John James:

Edité par New York & Philadelphia: E.G. Dorsey for J.J. Audubon and J.B. Chevalier, 1840-1844.

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The spectacular Levy copy of the first octavo edition of Audubon's "Great National Work." This is the first complete edition and the first American edition. The work is one of the "most beautiful, popular, and important natural history books published in America in the nineteenth century.representing the best of pre Civil War American lithography and giving Audubon the opportunity finally to display his scholarship and genius to a large American audience for the first time" (Tyler). The plates, here accompanied by the text for the first time, were reduced and variously modified from the Havell engravings in the double-elephant folio. Seven new species are figured and seventeen others, previously described in the Ornithological Biography but not illustrated, were also shown for the first time. Audubon may have been prompted to publish the reduced version of his double-elephant folio by the appearance in 1839 of John Kirk Townsend's rival Ornithology of the United States; or, as he writes in the introduction to the present work, he may have succumbed to public demand and his wish that a work similar to his large work should be published but "at such a price, as would enable every student or lover of nature to place it in his Library." The first edition of the octavo work is certainly the most famous and accessible of all the great American color plate books, and now represents the only realistic opportunity that exists for collectors to own an entire collection of Audubon images in a form that was overseen and approved by the great artist himself. The octavo Birds of America was originally issued in 100 parts, each containing five plates. The whole story of the production of the book, with detailed information about every aspect of the project, is told by Ron Tyler in Audubon's Great National Work. The story Tyler tells of the difficulties of production and marketing are revealing of the whole world of color plate book production in mid-19th-century America. By combining detailed text with careful observations next to his famous images, Audubon proved that he was as good a scientific naturalist as the members of the scientific establishment who had scorned him. This set, elaborately bound with the gilt device of Audubon's Washington Sea Eagle, was owned by Jacques Levy and sold at his Sotheby's sale in 2012; it is unquestionably one of the finest sets this firm has handled in its long history with American color plate books in general, and with Audubon's Birds in particular. BENNETT, p.5. FRIES, Appendix A. NISSEN IVB 51. REESE, STAMPED WITH A NATIONAL CHARACTER 34. RIPLEY 13. Ron Tyler, Audubon's Great National Work: The Royal Octavo Edition of the Birds of America (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1993), Appendix I. SABIN 2364. WOOD, p.208. ZIMMER, p.22. Royal octavo. Uniform full red morocco, gilt device of the Washington Sea Eagle to boards, spines gilt extra with raised bands, gilt dentelle turn-ins, a.e.g. Bindings lightly rubbed, more to earlier volumes. Light offsetting and occasional minimal tanning, minor foxing to later volumes, contemporary ownership inscription of Caroline M. Fitch to front free endpaper of each volume. A beautiful set.

N° de réf. du vendeur 68724

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: THE BIRDS OF AMERICA, FROM DRAWINGS MADE IN THE UNITED STATES AND THEIR TERRITORIES.
• Éditeur: New York & Philadelphia: E.G. Dorsey for J.J. Audubon and J.B. Chevalier, 1840-1844.