Audubon's Elephant

Hart-Davis, Duff

ISBN 10: 029782967X / ISBN 13: 9780297829676

Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Lonndon, 2003

About this Item

First edition. A VERY FINE book in VERY FINE jacket. An account of John James Audubon's struggle in creating and publishing his "elepahnt folio" of The Birds of America. .last complete copy sold at auction in 2000 for $8.8 million ! Beautifully illustrated. A heavy book using the highest quality coated paper stock!

Seller Inventory # JD1973

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Audubon's Elephant
• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Lonndon
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 029782967X
• ISBN 13: 9780297829676
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Profusely Illustrated
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Non-fiction
  • Biography

About this title

Synopsis

Illegitimate, half-French, half-American, poorly educated, chronically short of money and obsessed with birds, Audubon came to England in 1826 to find a publisher for his extraordinary paintings. He insisted that they must be reproduced on double-elephant folio paper - sheets almost 40 inches by 30 - so that even the largest species could be represented life size, and no-one in America had been prepared to tackle such a gigantic task. With his dramatic good looks and flamboyant Woodsman's clothes he attracted attention wherever he went. Drawing on Audubon's journals, letters to his wife and the archives of the families with whom he stayed and worked, Duff Hart-Davis recreates Audubon's twelve years in Britain in search of patrons and publishers. It is an extraordinary story of an obsessive genius and his observations of people, places and events in early nineteenth-century England and Scotland.

About the Author

Duff Hart-Davis is an author, journalist and countryman and for fifeteen years until 2001 he wrote the 'Country Matters' column for The Independent. He has ghosted the memoirs of SAS hero Peter de la Billiere and the fiction of Chris Ryan. His encyclopaedic FAUNA BRITANNICA was published in 2002 by W&N. He is married with two children.