Ocean State Libraries

In this Pulitzer Prize—finalist biography, the author of Mad at the World examines the little-known life of the man behind the well-known bird survey. John James Audubon is renowned for his masterpiece of natural history and art, The Birds of America, the first nearly comprehensive survey of the continent's birdlife. And yet few people understand, and many assume incorrectly, what sort of man he was. How did the illegitimate son of a French sea...

In 1803, an eighteen-year-old West Indies–born Frenchman arrived in New York City, fleeing Napoleon's conscription. His work would become inextricably entwined with the new world he so proudly adopted in his motto "America, my country." Inspired by the primeval forests and the vast flocks of birds that thrived in them, Audubon spent the next several decades of his life painstakingly documenting the birds of the American wilderness. He traveled...

Presents some of the career work done by Cordelia Stanwood, who began her study of birds when ornithology was a very young science.

Birds were "the objects of my greatest delight," wrote John James Audubon (1785–1851), founder of modern ornithology and one of the world's greatest bird painters. His masterpiece, The Birds of America depicts almost five hundred North American bird species, each image—lifelike and life size—rendered in vibrant color. Audubon was also an explorer, a woodsman, a hunter, an entertaining and prolific writer, and an energetic self-promoter.

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