Delineations of American Scenery and Character (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

Description

Beyond a doubt John James Audubon was one of the most versatile and striking characters that has ever appeared in our history. In ardor and enthusiasm for the study of nature perhaps no one has ever surpassed him, and no one can measure the influence which his talents and devotion have exerted upon his favorite pursuits.

Until recent years Audubon had been regarded as the Melchizedek of American natural history, nothing having been certainly known up to that time concerning his birth, his parentage and early life. Then the personal letters and family documents of his father, Lieutenant Jean Audubon, were suddenly discovered in surprising abundance at Couéron in France, where, in a villa on the right bank of the Loire, they had lain unnoticed for nearly an hundred years.

The veil of mystery which had so completely enveloped the life of his illustrious son was suddenly lifted and we were enabled to form a more just estimate of his character and work.

“America, my country,” whose life and scenery Audubon never tired of celebrating, has not forgotten him. A lofty peak in the Rocky Mountains, American counties and towns, as well as parks and streets in American cities now bear his name; and the far-famed and beneficent National Association of Audubon Societies for the-Protection of Wild Birds and Animals in recent years has made his name a household word throughout the land which he loved and whose bird and wild life he has depicted in unfading colors.

Notwithstanding Audubon’s great fame and success as an animal painter and descriptive writer, the public has never had access to his work in cheap editions. It should be noticed that his accounts of the birds were much more detailed than those of his famous contemporary, Alexander Wilson, and that his publications were projected on a large and expensive scale. It is therefore hardly surprising that no reprint of even the smaller edition of his Birds has been made for half a century.