Sold for $62,500

Together, 2 works in 10 volumes, royal 8vo (264 x 162-172 mm).  Birds: Half-titles, 500 HAND-COLORED LITHOGRAPHED PLATES after Audubon by W. E. Hitchcock, R. Trembly and others, printed and colored by J. T. Bowen, wood-engraved anatomical diagrams in text; Quadrupeds: 155 HAND-COLORED LITHOGRAPHED PLATES by W. E. Hitchcock and R. Trembly after J. J. and John Wodehouse Audubon. UNIFORMLY BOUND IN ORIGINAL PUBLISHER’S BLIND-STAMPED BROWN MOROCCO, edges gilt (neatly rebacked to style). Provenance: Morgan Shepard (“John Martin”), (1865-1947) children’s book author (typed letters signed tipped in to:); R. M. Kaufmann (bookplate). 

 

FIRST OCTAVO EDITIONS IN THE DELUXE PUBLISHER’S BINDINGS

 

Audubon’s double-elephant folio edition of The Birds of America (1827-1838) established his reputation as the greatest ornithological artist of his time. Though that edition was published in London to ensure the quality of the plates, he employed the Philadelphia firm of J. T. Bowen to produce this more commercially viable edition under the close supervision of his sons.  The original subscription price was $100, and its commercial success granted Audubon financial security. To the original plate count included in the double-elephant folio edition, the octavo edition adds 65 new images for a total of 500 plates, making it "the most extensive color plate book produced in America up to that time" (Reese). The Quadrupeds was first published between 1845 and 1848 in three folio volumes with 150 colored plates; a supplement, published in 1854, provided an additional volume of text and 6 plates. This first octavo edition, issued in response to the success of the octavo edition of The Birds of America, contains all of the original 150 plates and 5 of the 6 supplemental plates, reduced by means of the camera lucida. Ayer/Zimmer, p.22; Bennett, p.5; McGill/Wood, p.208; Nissen IVB 51; Nissen ZBI 163; Reese, American Color Plate Books 34; Sabin 2364, 2638. A FINE TALL SET.