John James Audubon was renowned for his adventurous nature, artistic genius, and his obsessive interest in birds. His Magnum opus  Birds of America consists of 435 hand-colored, life-size prints of 497 bird species, made from engraved copper plates. The pages were organized for artistic effect and contrasting interest, as if the reader were taking a visual tour. The cost of printing the entire work was $115,640 (about 2 million dollars today), paid for from advance subscriptions, exhibitions, oil painting commissions, and animal skins which Audubon hunted and sold. A remarkable accomplishment, Birds of America took more than 14 years of field observations and drawings, plus his single-handed management and promotion of the project to make it a success.

Description: DELUXE EDITION of the Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio. Limited to 2500 copies, this copy #979. SIGNED BY BOTH ROGER & VIRGINIA PETERSON editors of the “Peterson guidebooks”. Hard bound in full leather with gilt title and raised bands to spine edge. Decorative gilt design to front board. Marbled end pages and silk ribbon book mark. 435 pages with 917 illustrations, including 482 in full color. Very minor wear to corners and edges of boards, otherwise fine.

Bookseller Inventory # 23670

SOLD

Audubon’s Birds of America
Audubon, John James; Peterson, Roger Tory; Peterson, Virginia Marie

Publisher: Abbeville Press
Publication Date: 1981
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Near Fine
Signed: Signed by Editors
Edition: First Edition Thus

· Category: Sold ·