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Adult Books - Nonfiction - Science - Animals
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Audubon’s Elephant: America’s Greatest Naturalist and the Making of ‘The Birds of America’.
Hart-Davis, Duff (author).
Apr. 2004. 288p. Holt, hardcover, $27.50 (0-8050-7568-2). 598.
REVIEW.
First published April 1, 2004 (Booklist).
The Audubon shelf is full to bursting, but so unusual was the naturalist-artist’s adventurous life, and so magnificent is his achievement, room must be made for more. In this handsomely illustrated volume, Hart-Davis, a British chronicler of country life, focuses on Audubon’s years in Edinburgh and London (1826-38), during which he oversaw the complex production of his unwieldy masterpiece, The Birds of America , a double-elephant folio comprising colored engravings on heavy sheets of paper measuring 39 1/2 by 29 1/2 inches. Writing with undisguised delight in his subject and drawing on Audubon’s expressive journals, Hart-Davis provides a lively account of every phase of Audubon’s audacious undertaking, from his often maddening campaign for subscriber support for his expensive project to the machinations of his enemies, his arduous journeys and prodigious artistic efforts, his wife’s great loyalty and sacrifice, and his struggle to write his Ornithological Biography . Hart-Davis profiles such key people as engraver Robert Havell and Audubon’s coauthor, William MacGillivray, and succeeds in awakening new appreciation for a truly original man and his paradigm-altering art and ecological insights. — Donna Seaman
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Features That Discuss This Work:
1. Read-alikes : Appreciating Audubon
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