Bird Print Reference Books
HANDBOOK OF AUDUBON PRINTS.
Lois Bannon & Taylor Clark. 4th. ed. Gretna, 1998. Cloth.A fine basic primer on prints by John James Audubon. Reissued in a fourth edition. $17.95
Nancy and Robert Braun. An Audubon Concordance. Migration Through the Plate Numbers. Fairfield, Connecticut, 1999. Paper. (Spiral bound.) This invaluable publication, issued by the American Historical Print Collectors Society, provides 18 comparative tables for the Havell, octavo, and Bien Audubon bird prints, including titles, plate numbers, common and scientific bird and plant names, other images appearing in the prints, and the first naturalists to have described these birds. $25.00
Robert Braun. Identifying Audubon Bird Prints. Originals, States, Editions, Restrikes, and Facsimiles and Reproductions. Fairfield, Connecticut, 2001. Paper. An extremely useful identification guide to all Audubon bird prints. Separately issued reprint of an article which appeared in Imprint V. 21 #2 (1996), with new color illustrations and updated bibliography. $14.00
S. Peter Dance. Classic Natural History Prints. Birds. New York, 1990. Cloth. Out of print. A survey with full-page color illustrations from many of the great illustrated works of ornithology of the 18th and 19th centuries. $20.00
CATESBY'S BIRDS OF COLONIAL AMERICA.
Alan Feduccia. Chapel Hill, 1985. Paper.
Forward by Russell W. Peterson. An excellent book on the fundamental importance of Mark Catesby's Natural History, this volume contains numerous color plates and b&w pictures of all Catesby's birds, along with his original text. Feduccia adds a fine introduction and presents guiding remarks on the plates. $27.50
THE DOUBLE ELEPHANT FOLIO: THE STORY OF AUDUBON'S BIRDS OF AMERICA.
Waldemar H. Fries. Reprint with new appendix by Susanne M. Low. Amherst, 2006. Cloth.
Often called the "Bible of Audubon scholars" since its publication in 1973, this book provides a wealth of information on the Birds of America including the names of subscribers, original cost of the book and details regarding sets that were broken up or destroyed. The appendix updates the whereabouts of each set. $84.95
Joseph Kastner. The Bird Illustrated. 1550-1900. New York, 1988. Cloth. Out of print. A sampling of ornithological illustrations from the collections of the New York Public Library. Fine illustrations, many in color. $40.00
Maureen Lambourne. Birds of the World: Over 400 of John Gould's Classic Bird Illustrations. New York, 1992. Cloth. In this beautiful book Gould's great-great granddaughter has created a superb reference with over 420 illustrations from his ten most important works. $45
Susanne M. Low. An Index and Guide to Audubon's Birds of America. New York, 1988. Cloth. Out of print. A bibliographical study of the double-elephant folio Birds of America (1827-38) with added information on each plate. $85.00
Amy R. W. Meyers, Editor. Art and Science in America: Issues of Representation. San Marino, 1998. Paper. The six essays in this book bring together the issues of representation posed by a number of scientific disciplines — botany, ornithology and geology — during the first decades of the American Republic. $15.00
Amy R.W. Meyers and Margaret Beck Pritchard. Empire's Nature. Mark Catesby's New World Vision. Chapel Hill, 1998. Cloth. Six essays describing Catesby's influence on the development of eighteenth-century scientific observation, natural history, and art, and their impact on the British colonial enterprise. Numerous color and b&w illustrations. $60.00
Robert McCracken Peck. A Celebration of Birds: The Life and Art of Louis Agassiz Fuertes. New York, 1982. Cloth. A comprehensive collection of one of America's greatest painters of birds, including works previously unavailable. $30.00
FINE BIRD BOOKS, 1700-1900
Sacheverell Sitwell. Foreword by S. Dillon Ripley. New York, 1990. Cloth. Out of print.
One of the most comprehensive illustrated guides to color plate ornithological books, with 52 full-page color illustrations. $75.00
Patricia Tyson Stroud. Thomas Say: New World Naturalist. Philadelphia, 1992. Cloth. Immortalized by scientists in the names of birds (Say's phoebe), reptiles, mammals, insects and shells, Thomas Say (1747-1834) himself named some 15,000 North American insects and identified many crop predators. He helped found the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences in 1812 and pioneered American entomology and conchology. $25.00
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