Audubon, John James

The Birds of America, from drawings made in the United States and their Territories. New York: George Lockwood, [ca. 1870-1871].

Eight volumes, ro🌠yal 8vo (263 x 170 mm). 500 hand-colored lithographed plates with color-printed backgrounds by J.T. Bowen after Audubon; some toning to titles, small institutional blind stamp tot titles and a few text pages, but🥃 a clean example with well-preserved colors. Publisher's binding of brown morocco decorated in blind and lettered in gilt, minor rubbing along joints and raised bands.

The last complete octavo edition of Audubon's great work.

Audubon created sixty-five new images for the octavo edition of The Birds, supplementing the original 435 of the double-elephant folio edition of 1827-1838. The resul💝ting series of 500 plates constitutes the most extensive Ameꦬrican color-plate book produced up to that time.

The Philadelphia printer J.T. Bowen reduced the double-elephant plates by camera lucida and the original configurations were altered so that only one species is depicted per plate. A fire and collapse of the L✃ockwood warehouse floor in the 1870s destroyed the stones for this work, ensuring this edition was to be the last.

REFERENCE:

Bennett ༺p. 5; Nissen 52; Reese 34; Sabin 2364; McGill/Wood p. 208; Ayer/Zimmer p. 22 (for original octavo edition).

PROVENANCE:

Frederick Abbot Bill (bookplate) — Fred W. Allsop (bookplate, noting its purchase from Cadmus Bookshop in New York) — 🎉City Library, Springfield, Mass. (blindstamp♉)