John James Audubon: Writings and Drawings (Library of America), John James Audubon

Here is the most comprehensive selection of Audubons writings ever published, along with a spectacular portfolio of his drawings. The Mississippi River Journal, the foremost record of an American artists progress, details Audubons first wilderness bird hunts; it is as fresh in its perceptions of the scenes and characters of the old South as of the forest and its creatures. Selections from his 1826 Journal follow Audubon to Europe, where after years of relative obscurity and financial distress his abilities were finally recognized. Audubons masterwork, the five-volume Ornithological Biography, is represented here by forty-five entries. Charming, haunting, and violent by turns, these vivid intimate portraits of the habits and habitats of American birds changed American nature writing forever.

In the Missouri River Journals, Audubon evokes the vanishing American Indian and the hardships of frontier life. An extensive selection of letters charting twenty years of Audubons artistic development, along with two essays on artistic technique and a brief memoir, round out the volume. Whenever possible, texts have been painstakingly prepared from original sources, without censorship or modernizing revision, constituting a major contribution to Audubon scholarship. Detailed general and ornithological indexes aid the reader in the field as well as in the study.