askaudubon.online

An on-line reference for John James Audubon's artwork and writings.

Audubon Bibliography

Adams, Alexander B.: John James Audubon; a biography. Adams. New York, Putnam, 1966.

Arthur, Stanley Clisby: Audubon : an intimate life of the American woodsman. New Orleans : Harmanson, 1937.

Burroughs, John: John James Audubon, The Overlook Press, Woodstock, New York. John Burroughs was a great writer and naturalist in his own right. From Audubon’s notes and journals, Burroughs produced his version of Audubon’s life and work.

Robert Buchanan: The life and adventures of John James Audubon, the naturalist / edited from materials supplied by his widow. London : Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, 1869.

Chancellor, John: Audubon, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London. Audubon travelled to Europe to find a publisher for his Birds of America since no one was either capable or willing to take on such a massive project in the United States. Chancellor gives an English perspective of Audubon’s life that included considerable time in London overseeing his publication and recruiting subscribers to his “Great Work”.

Ford, Alice: John James Audubon, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Ford dedicated much of her career as an art historian and artist biographer to John James Audubon. The detail and description that Ford has compiled on Audubon leaves her arguably as the authority on the artist’s life and work.

Foshay, Ella M.: John James Audubon, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York. Foshay worked as an art historian and was the curator for the New-York Historical Society. All of the drawings that were used for Audubon’s Birds of America are in the society’s collection.

Fries, Waldemar H.: The Double Elephant Folio, Zenaida Publishing, Inc., Amherst, Massachusetts. Fries provides a thorough summary of Audubon’s life and work. Although most important to Fries is the process Audubon went through to produce Birds of America and the different forms in which Birds of America ultimately appeared. Almost half of the book is an accounting and locations of the known copies that still exist of the double elephant edition of Birds of America.

Hart-Davis, Duff: Audubon’s Elephant, Henry Holt and Company, New York. As if Audubon’s effort to identify, document, and draw every bird in North America was not ambitious enough, he also was determined to draw the birds as they appeared in nature and to their actual size. This required an extra large size (12” x 19”) of paper called “double-elephant” folio. It is estimated that there are only about 170 copies of Audubon’s elephant folio-sized Birds of America still intact.

Herrick, Francis Hobart: Audubon the naturalist; a history of his life and time. New York, London, D. Appleton and Company, 1917.

Irmscher, Christoph, editor: Audubon, The Library of America. Selected prints from Audubon’s Birds of America and selected writings from Audubon’s Mississippi River journal, the Ornithological Biography, Missouri River journals, letters and other notes.

Lindsey, Alton A.: The Bicentennial of John James Audubon, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Lindsey’s writing and a collection of essays by such writers as Mary Durant, Michael Harwood, Frank Levering, Robert Owen Petty, and Scott Russell Sanders about the importance of Audubon capturing an America that once was.

Logan, Peter B.: Audubon, Ashbryn Press, San Francisco. John James Audubon’s search for the birds of America took him as far south as the Florida Keys and Galveston, Texas, all along the southern part of the Mississippi River, up and down the Ohio River, as far west as North Dakota, and as far north as Labrador. Logan focuses on Audubon’s expedition to Labrador with his son and others where they found such species as the now extinct Labrador duck.

Nobles, Gregory H.: John James Audubon : the nature of the American woodsman. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017]

Peattie, Donald Culross, editor: Audubon’s America, Houghton, Mifflin, Company, Boston. The America that Audubon saw and documented is nothing like what it is today. Peattie summarizes Audubon’s thousands of pages of notes and letters to provide an account and image of the America Audubon saw in his eyes.

Rhodes, Richard: John James Audubon, Alfred A. Knopf, New York. Rhodes won the Pulitzer Prize with The Making of the Atomic Bomb in 1986. In 2006, Rhodes edited for Everyman’s Library a collection of Audubon’s letters and writings called The Audubon Reader.

Rourke, Constance: Audubon, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York. Rourke is best known for American Humor: A Study of the National Character. Her biography on Audubon received a Newbery Honor in 1937.

Streshinsky, Shirley: Audubon, Villard Books, New York. Steshinsky’s other works include the novels The Shores of Paradise, Gift of the Golden Mountain, A Time Between, and Hers the Kingdom.

Teale, Edwin Way: Audubon’s Wildlife, Castle Books, New York. Teale wrote many books and articles about the outdoors and nature. By February 14, 1947, cars and roads were transforming Audubon’s America but allowed Teale and his wife Nellie to travel to the Everglades and then head back north covering 17,000 miles. The odyssey inspired for Teale the book North With the Spring. It was the first of four books that made up The American Seasons. Teale drove another 58,000 miles to complete the other three books:  Journey Into Summer, Autumn Across America, and Wandering Through Winter.In 1966, Peale won the Pulitzer Prize for the latter book.