Description: The Birds of America, from Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories by John James Audubon Complete seven volume set of the second octavo edition, the first to feature full color backgrounds New York: V.G. Audubon, 1856. Second octavo edition, the first edition with fully colored backgrounds. Complete in seven volumes. With 500 beautiful hand-colored lithographed plates. Bound in publisher's full brown morocco decoratively stamped & lettered in blind on covers, spines lettered in gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Very Good+, wear and scuffing to bindings, a couple of joints rubbed; light foxing to some prelims and occasionally to margins of text leaves but not to the plates, a few plates with minor darkening, brown spot in margin of plate 377 intruding to a few adjacent leaves. Inner hinges of vols. 5, 6, and 7 repaired with archival mending tissue. Booksellers tickets on paste downs. A handsome set of Audubon's ornithological masterpiece in its original bindings. It is perhaps the most important American color-plate book of the 19th century. The plates, accompanied for the first time in the octavo edition by the text, were reduced and modified from the original Havell engravings for the double-elephant folio. The plates were reduced by camera lucida and some of the backgrounds entirely changed or greatly modified. To the original plate count included in the double-elephant folio edition, the octavo edition adds 65 new images for a total of 500 plates, making it "the most extensive color plate book produced in America up to that time" (Reese). Included for the first time are seven new species and 17 others, previously described in the Ornithological Biography but not illustrated, are also shown for the first time. The original compositions were altered so that only one species is depicted per plate.
Price: 55000 USD
Location: Portland, Oregon
End Time: 2024-12-01T06:24:38.000Z
Shipping Cost: 0 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
Refund will be given as: Money Back
Return policy details:
Author: Audubon, John James
Publisher: V.G. Audubon
Year Printed: 1856
Language: English