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Source: Wikipedia
The Birds of America is a book by naturalist and painter John James Audubon, containing illustrations of a wide variety of birds of the United States. It was first published as a series of sections between 1827 and 1838, in Edinburgh and London.
The work consists of hand-coloured, life-size prints, made from engraved plates, measuring around 39 by 26 inches (99 by 66 cm). It includes images of six now-extinct birds: Carolina Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon, Labrador Duck, Great Auk, Esquimaux Curlew, and Pinnated Grouse.^[2]
Early Publication History
About 1820 (around the age of 35) Audubon declared his intention to paint every bird in North America.^[3] In his bird art, he mainly forsook oil paint, the medium of serious artists of the day, in favour of watercolours and pastel crayons (and occasionally pencil, charcoal, chalk, gouache, and pen and ink).^[4] As early as 1807 he developed a method of using wires and threads to hold dead birds in life-like poses while he drew them.^[3]
In 1823 Audubon went to Philadelphia and New York looking for financial support in the form of subscribers to enable him to publish his artwork, but found support lacking.^[3] As a result, in 1826 he set sail for the United ^[5] of his original illustrations, looking for the financial support of subscribers and the technical abilities of engravers and printers. After exhibiting his drawings in Liverpool and Manchester he journeyed to Edinburgh, where he met the accomplished engraver William H. Lizars. Lizars engraved up to ten of the first plates, but was unable to continue the project when his colourists went on strike.^[1]^[6] In 1827 Audubon engaged the noted London animal engraver Robert Havell Jr, and his father, Robert Havell Sr. Havell Jr oversaw the project through to its completion in 1838.^[6]

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The original edition of Birds of America (sometimes called the Havell Edition^[7] after its printer, and sometimes called the "Double Elephant Folio" because of its size) was printed on handmade paper 39.5 inches tall by 28.5 inches wide.^[7] The principal printing technique was copperplate etching, but engraving and aquatint were also used.^[7] Watercolour was then added by hand.
Audubon funded the costly printing project through a pay-as-you-go subscription. From 1826 to 1829 he travelled around the UK and to Paris lecturing on ornithology and frontier American life ^[8] in an effort to entice wealthy patrons to subscribe to the series of prints. Subscribers included Charles X of France, Queen Adelaide of Britain (wife of William IV), Earl Spencer and later the Americans Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. ^[8]
Prints were issued in sets of five every month or two in tin cases^[9] and each set usually included one very large bird, one medium-sized bird, and three small birds.^[8] In 1838, at the end of the thirteen-year project, 435 plates (87 sets of five) had been issued at a total cost of $870 or 175 British guineas (£183.75).^[4] The plates were published unbound and without any text to avoid having to furnish free copies to the public libraries in England.^[1] It is estimated that not more than 200 complete sets were ever compiled.^[7]^[8] An accompanying text, issued separately, was written by Audubon and the Scottish naturalist and ornithologist William MacGillivray^[10] and published in five volumes in Edinburgh between 1831 and 1839, under the title Ornithological Biography, or, An account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America.^[1] The additional cost of the five volumes of text brought the total cost of plates and text to about $1000.^[7]
After the folio edition was completed, Audubon decided to produce a more affordable edition and employed a lithographer from Philadelphia named J. T. Bowen. Bowen and his team created an octavo edition which was issued to subscribers in seven volumes and completed in 1844 after selling 1,199 sets.^{[citation needed]} Five more octavo editions were completed through 1877. The octavo edition used the text of the Ornithological biography but increased the number of plates to 500, separating some birds which had originally appeared together. Some new drawings were included, mostly by John Woodhouse though Audubon and members of Bowen's team also contributed.^[11]^[12]
The Bien Edition was published in 1858 by Roe Lockwood in New York under the supervision of Audubon’s sons. Due in part to the Civil War, the edition was never finished. This edition consisted of 105 plates and included none of the original text.^[13] Fewer than 100 subscriptions were sold, making this edition rarer than other early editions.^[14]

Public exhibition

Teyler's subsection of Audubon book on special display in December 2010. Displayed page is the famous pink flamingo with head bent to fit it lifesize on the page.

In 2007 the book was the subject of an exhibition by the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, which owns a copy it ordered from the original subscription, along with the table sold to house and display it. The book's subsections fit into special drawers around a fly-leaf table; the table formed the centerpiece for gatherings of the Teyler's gentleman's society of science.^[15] To commemorate the book's record-breaking sale, the museum has decided to display its copy (for which the museum eventually paid 2200 guilders—a fortune at the time—during the years 1827-1838) from now until January 2011.^[16]
All of John James Audubon's known extant watercolors preparatory for Birds of America are housed at the New-York Historical Society in New York City.^[4]
The Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas owns and exhibits John James Audubon's personal copy of Birds of America.^[17]

Recent sales

In December 2010, The Economist magazine estimated that, adjusted for inflation, five of the ten highest prices ever paid for printed books were paid for copies of Birds of America.^[18] Of the 119 copies known to survive, only eleven are held in private collections.^[19] In March 2000 the Fox-Bute copy sold at Christie's (New York) for $8,802,500.^[20]^[21] In December 2005 an unbound copy, the Providence Athenaeum Set,^[21] sold, again at Christie's (New York), for $5.6 million.^[22]
On 7 December 2010, a complete copy of the first edition was sold in London at Sotheby's for £7,321,250^[23] (approximately $11.5 million)^[24] during the sale of Magnificent Books, Manuscripts and Drawings from the Collection of Frederick, 2nd Lord Hesketh. The winning bid was a record auction price for a printed book and was placed by London-based art dealer Michael Tollemache, who outbid three others during the auction.^[24] According to the provenance details reported by the auction house, the copy's original owner was Henry Witham of Durham, listed as subscriber 11 in Audubon's Ornithological Biography; the first volume of the set bears a presentation inscription from Witham's wife, dated 24 June 1831.^[23] Lord Hesketh had bought the copy from a descendant of Witham at a Christie's auction on 3 July 1951, paying £7,000.^[23]