The Audubon Reader: Edited and Introduced by Richard Rhodes - Hardcover

Audubon, John James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400043697 ISBN 13: 9781400043699

Publisher: Everyman's Library, 2006

Synopsis

This unprecedented anthology of John James Audubon’s lively and colorful writings about the American wilderness reintroduces the great artist and ornithologist as an exceptional American writer, a predecessor to Thoreau, Emerson, and Melville.

Audubon’s award-winning biographer, Richard Rhodes, has gathered excerpts from his journals, letters, and published works, and has organized them to appeal to general readers. Rhodes’s unobtrusive commentary frames a wide range of selections, including Audubon’s vivid “bird biographies,” correspondence with his devoted wife, Lucy, journal accounts of dramatic river journeys and hunting trips with the Shawnee and Osage Indians, and a generous sampling of brief narrative episodes that have long been out of print—engaging stories of pioneer life such as "The Great Pine Swamp," “The Earthquake,” and “Kentucky Barbecue on the Fourth of July.” Full-color reproductions of sixteen of Audubon’s stunning watercolor illustrations accompany the text.

The Audubon Reader allows us to experience Audubon’s distinctive voice directly and provides a window into his electrifying encounter with early America: with its wildlife and birds, its people, and its primordial wilderness.

About this title

About the Author:

John James Audubon was an American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his extensive studies documenting all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats.

From Booklist:

As readers of Rhodes' illuminating biography of James John Audubon, a Booklist Top of the List title, have discovered, Audubon was as vivid a writer as he was a passionately precise artist. Here Rhodes presents an invaluable and stirring collection of Audubon's zestful letters, vital biographies of birds and quadrupeds, and zestful journal excerpts, striking writings introduced with a lively portrait of the intrepid artist and selected with an eye to materials not included in the Library of America's volume. Enlightening and charming, Audubon relates one remarkable exploit after another while documenting his quest for birds in the fecund Midwest, lavish Florida, and Labrador ("comfortless, cold and foggy, yet grand"), and his adventures in England, where he marvels over British formality and oversees the painstaking creation of his masterpiece, The Birds of America. Expressing awe for nature and respect for Native Americans, Audubon chronicles his prodigious efforts as naturalist, artist, and family man (letters from his heroic wife, Lucy, are included), sharing his ardor and concern for all of life, be it avian, botanical, or human. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Everyman's Library
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1400043697
• ISBN 13: 9781400043699
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 656
• Editor: Rhodes Richard