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In the century and a half since John James Audubon's death, his name has become synonymous with wildlife conservation and natural history. But few people know what a complicated figure he was -- or the dramatic story behind The Birds of America. Before Audubon, ornithological illustrations depicted scaled-down birds perched in static poses. Wheeling beneath storm-racked skies or ripping flesh from newly killed prey, Audubon's life-sized birds looked as if they might fly screeching off the page. The wildness in the images matched the untamed spirit in Audubon -- a self-taught painter and self-anointed aristocrat who, with his buckskins and long hair, wanted to be seen as both a hardened frontiersman and a cultured man of science. In truth, neither his friends nor his detractors ever knew exactly who Audubon was or where he came from. Tormented by the ambiguities surrounding his birth, he reinvented himself ceaselessly, creating a life as dramatic as his fictionalizations of it. But when he came east at thirty-eight -- broke and desperate to find a publisher for his birds -- he ran squarely into a scientific establishment still wedded to convention and suspicious of the brash newcomer and his grandiose claims. It took Audubon fifteen years to prevail in both his project and his vision. How he triumphed and what drove him are the subjects of this gripping narrative. - Jacket flap.
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United StatesEdition | Availability |
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1
Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America
2014, Milkweed Editions
in English
1571319239 9781571319234
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2
Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America
June 16, 2005, North Point Press
Paperback
in English
0865477264 9780865477261
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3
Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America
2005, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
in English
1429932856 9781429932851
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4
Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America
June 16, 2004, North Point Press, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hardcover
in English
0865476713 9780865476714
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Book Details
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"On a fine spring afternoon in 1824, the daily coach from Pittsburgh swayed down the turnpike toward Philadelphia, the team moving easily on the smooth, macadamized lane."
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Feedback?April 17, 2024 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
February 14, 2020 | Edited by MARC Bot | remove fake subjects |
July 22, 2017 | Edited by Mek | adding subject: In library |
October 26, 2016 | Edited by Bryan Tyson | Edited without comment. |
December 10, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |