John Audubon’s Book “The Birds of America” Features 435 Illustrations Of Life-Sized Birds On 39x26 Inch Pages

"They called it a baby elephant folio. It was 18 lbs and a bitch to ship."

Ayoub

• Published in Interesting
• November 27, 2022

The first edition of John James Audubon’s “The Birds of America” sold at an auction at Christie’s in New York for USD 9,650,000. It's considered one of the most valuable illustrated books to ever be produced. 

In 2012, another copy was bought by American collector Carl Knobloch for $7.9 million. Almost $2 million more than the previous one. 

The book is considered one of the world’s most valuable natural history books and Audubon’s greatest triumph. The complete, full-size edition features 1,037 life-sized birds on 435 hand-colored prints. 

The Birds of America is considered the best existing example of aquatint-colored engraving. The book is an artistic masterpiece and came into existence thanks to Audubon’s wish to document all the bird species of North America.

The best printers and colorists were recruited to be part of this project, and they were able to translate his work into print. A Redditor who goes by the username u/SojourningCPA made a post on the r/todayilearned subReddit about John Audubon’s book “The Birds of America”, and what makes it particularly unique. 

The user received a lot of interesting reactions to their post. Scroll down to check out the full Reddit post, and scroll a little further to read the comments from the original post.

Here's the original post by Reddit user u/SojourningCPA:

Here's how the Reddit community reacted to u/SojourningCPA's post:

Shipping a book with real-life sizes must be the worst.

The largest and most beautiful book out there.

It would be worth much more today.

There's a movie based on these events.

You can stream the movie on various streaming platforms.

Stealing those books would be more lucrative than robbing a bank.

Trying to sell one of those books would raise a lot of questions.

"Other times people just burn painting to destroy evidence."

"The criminal bosses don’t want their house full of obviously stolen stuff. "

Seeing those illustrations is definitely mind-blowing.

"The colors are all very grounding yet vibrant and captivating."

The illustrations might look alive, but the birds definitely weren't.

That's basically what you do if you're browsing the book.

Seeing the book in real life is even more breathtaking.

That is not something I ever wanted to know...

That is another disturbing piece of information.

The amount of detail in the illustrations is astounding!

Bird law in this country is not governed by reason.

None of the birds made it out alive.

Protecting birds and the places they need, unless they are going to be included in that book.

The fact that such a book even exists is truly remarkable. The price is a little too much but definitely worth every penny. It's more of an experience than a book.

Some users mentioned that the birds in the illustrations were all taxidermied, but they definitely look very alive and lively. If you enjoyed reading this, make sure to check out similar content on our platform. There's something for everyone!

Ayoub