This Strange Wilderness: The Life And Art Of John James Audubon - Plot & Excerpts
As it neared completion, he wrote, “I have laboured like a Cart Horse for thirty years on a Single Work, have been successful almost to a miracle in its publication so far, and am thought a-a-a (I dislike to write it, but no matter here goes) . . . a Great Naturalist!!!”1 The last number of The Birds was published in 1838, twelve years after the first. The entire work was four volumes long and depicted 489 American species, twice as many as Alexander Wilson—or anyone else—had shown before. Some of the family and larger groupings had taken years to assemble, with Audubon using a collage technique to paste several bird drawings onto one sheet of paper. The printed engravings were so faithful to the original watercolors that they made Robert Havell Jr. famous along with Audubon. One year later, the fifth and last volume of Ornithological Biography came out. This work, too, was revolutionary. Audubon had created a new kind of nature writing, combining scientific fact with his exuberant and poetic descriptions.
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