The Birds of America
AN EXTRAORDINARY SUBSCRIBER’S SET
(EX-COLL. MAJ. GEN. A.A. HUMPHREYS)
WITH ALL 100 PART-WRAPPERS BOUND IN
Audubon, John James. The birds of America, from drawings made in the United States and their territories. 7 volumes. Voll. I-V: New York: J.J. Audubon and Philadelphia: J.B. Chevalier, 1840–1841–1841–1842–1842; voll. VI-VII: New York and Philadelphia: J.J. Audubon, 1843–1844. First octavo edition.
Royal octavo (10” x 6 3/8”, 255mm x 162mm). With 500 hand-colored lithographed plates after Audubon by W. E. Hitchcock, R. Trembly et al., printed and colored by J. T Bowen.
Bound by Bradstreet’s (signed at the upper edge of the verso of the front free end-paper; late XIXc?; re-backed, with the original back-strips laid down) in contemporary half green crushed morocco over marbled boards. On the spine, five raised bands. Title gilt to the second panel, author gilt to the third, number gilt to the fourth and imprint gilt to the tail. Top edge of the text-block gilt. Marbled end-papers to match the boards.
Re-backed, with the original back-strips laid down. Scuffed at the extremities, but altogether a solid set. Foxed mildly throughout, though mostly to the text. Damp-staining to the upper fore-corner of II.191–212 (pp. 113-128), not affecting the text. Part 28 rear wrapper (vol. II) with a repaired hole; scattered small splits and repairs to the remaining wrappers. First free end-papers of voll. 1, 2 and 6 detached. Ownership signature of A.A. Humphreys to many of the wrappers (sometimes obliterated).
John James Audubon (1785–1851) was a larger-than-life figure; tall, wildly-dressed, bear fat as hair pomade. His project of illustrating the birds of America, which in its original double elephant folio format was issued in parts 1827–1838, electrified British and continental audiences, and it is from them that the subscriptions to sustain that Atlantean effort were drawn. Once his dominance of the field was established, Audubon could turn to the more natural audience for the subject: Americans. This is the only octavo edition Audubon himself issued, and it allowed him to establish his reputation with those who could not afford the folio edition.
The octavo edition is, in a sense, the homecoming of the work. Audubon added 65 plates to the double elephant’s 435, bringing the number to 500. Audubon’s son John Woodhouse reduced the original plates using a camera lucida, separating out multi-species plates and in many cases recomposing the backgrounds. The original division of the Birds project as plates-only, with the Ornithological Biography issued as a quasi-separate work (in order to avoid copyright deposit requirements), has been cured, so to speak; Audubon’s Synopsis of the Birds of America (1839) provided the framework for reorganizing and reintegrating text and image. The project was a success, attracting some 700 subscribers willing to pay $100 for the 100 parts (14 each in voll. I-VI, 16 in vol. VII) issued over five years.
The present set is in many ways exceptional, not least for the preservation of the 100 parts’ wrappers printed on blue, buff and grey paper (i.e., 200: front and back). The wrappers for the text and plates are bound continuously at the rear of their respective volumes. Rare Book Hub records copies with wrappers bound in coming to auction 12 times; only one (the Smolley-Small copy, unbound: Christie’s New York 18 May 2012, lot 4) contained all 100; the Bradley Martin copy lacked two parts’ wrappers and most examples offered were highly fragmentary or even a single part only. As a document of the content and format of the original state of the work, the wrappers are irreplaceable.
Subscribers’ copies are also particularly desirable, as they likelier contain all components in their earliest states. The present copy belonged to Major General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys (1810–1883), who eventually rose to be Chief Engineer of the United States Army; he is listed among the subscribers of Washington, D.C. Humphreys’s career was storied; he served with distinction for the Union in the Civil War as topographical engineer of McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. He was breveted to the rank of brigadier general, and led his brigade at Antietam, Fredericksburg and, catastrophically, at Gettysburg.
His career after the war was more scholarly. He wrote, with Henry Abbott, the Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River and went on to found the Philosophical Society of Washington (D.C.); he had long been a member of the American Philosophical Society. His set of the Birds doubtless remained at home during his fighting years, but must have been a prompt and a solace as he traveled the same country Audubon had. Their acquaintance has not been proven, though both are inductees into the National Rivers Hall of Fame.
Acquired at the Sotheby’s New York sale of John Golden (22 November 2022, lot 1). Mr. Golden, long a client of Arader’s, has through his life worked in the field of printing. His collection, amassed over forty years, contains examples of finely printed works of natural history.
Ayer/Zimmer, p. 22; Bennett, p. 5; Church 1352; McGill/Wood p. 208; Nissen, IVB 51; Reese, American Color Plates Books 34; Sabin 2364.
Item #JLR0506
Price: $148,000