Audubon The Naturalist: A History Of His Life And Time
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
Few figures in American natural history loom as large as John James Audubon, and Francis Hobart Herrick's monumental two-volume biography, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of his Life and Time, chronicles the full arc of this extraordinary man's life with scholarly rigor and narrative sweep. From Audubon's mysterious origins in Haiti and his tempestuous early years in France to his relentless, often desperate pursuit of artistic and scientific greatness across the American wilderness, Herrick presents a portrait of a man consumed by an almost obsessive passion for birds, painting, and the untamed natural world. The biography situates Audubon within the rich tapestry of early 19th-century America, detailing the social, scientific, and cultural currents that shaped both the man and his legendary work, The Birds of America. Herrick's meticulous research and authoritative prose give this work a permanent place in the canon of American biographical literature, drawing on primary sources, letters, and journals to illuminate the contradictions of a man who was simultaneously visionary and flawed, celebrated and embattled. The work transcends a simple life story, arguing instead for Audubon's central importance to the development of American ornithology, wilderness art, and the broader Romantic tradition of nature writing. For anyone captivated by the intersection of art, science, and the American frontier spirit, this biography asks a haunting question: what drives a man to sacrifice everything in pursuit of beauty?
Author: Francis Hobart Herrick
Format: Paperback
Published: 1968
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
Few figures in American natural history loom as large as John James Audubon, and Francis Hobart Herrick's monumental two-volume biography, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of his Life and Time, chronicles the full arc of this extraordinary man's life with scholarly rigor and narrative sweep. From Audubon's mysterious origins in Haiti and his tempestuous early years in France to his relentless, often desperate pursuit of artistic and scientific greatness across the American wilderness, Herrick presents a portrait of a man consumed by an almost obsessive passion for birds, painting, and the untamed natural world. The biography situates Audubon within the rich tapestry of early 19th-century America, detailing the social, scientific, and cultural currents that shaped both the man and his legendary work, The Birds of America. Herrick's meticulous research and authoritative prose give this work a permanent place in the canon of American biographical literature, drawing on primary sources, letters, and journals to illuminate the contradictions of a man who was simultaneously visionary and flawed, celebrated and embattled. The work transcends a simple life story, arguing instead for Audubon's central importance to the development of American ornithology, wilderness art, and the broader Romantic tradition of nature writing. For anyone captivated by the intersection of art, science, and the American frontier spirit, this biography asks a haunting question: what drives a man to sacrifice everything in pursuit of beauty?