The Birds of America [WITH] The Quadrupeds of North America

1870 (or 1871) New York
John James Audubon
$28,000

Seventh and final edition. Very good condition in good binding. 11 volumes, comprising The Birds of America in 8 volumes and The Quadrupeds of North America in 3 volumes. Collated complete with 500 tinted and hand-colored lithographic plates of birds and 155 of mammals. Uniformly bound.

Shortly after this edition of Audubon’s Birds and Qudrupeds was published, the original lithographic stones fell through the floor of the burning building where they were stored and smashed to pieces. This Lockwood edition, therefore, is the last that was printed from the octavo-format stones made using camera lucida technology in the 1840s and 1850s. In many cases, backgrounds showing the appropriate landscape for the illustrated bird or mammal were filled in. (These were planned but with few exceptions missing from the original editions.) A fine set in a working binding.