num_pages: 656
description: This unprecedented anthology of John James Audubons lively and colorful writings about the American wilderness reintroduces the great artist and ornithologist as an exceptional American writer a predecessor to Thoreau Emerson and Melville.Audubons award-winning biographer Richard Rhodes has gathered excerpts from his journals letters and published works and has organized them to appeal to general readers. Rhodess unobtrusive commentary frames a wide range of selections including Audubons vivid bird biographies correspondence with his devoted wife Lucy journal accounts of dramatic river journeys and hunting trips with the Shawnee and Osage Indians and a generous sampling of brief narrative episodes that have long been out of printengaging stories of pioneer life such as The Great Pine Swamp The Earthquake and Kentucky Barbecue on the Fourth of July. Full-color reproductions of sixteen of Audubons stunning watercolor illustrations accompany the text.The Audubon Reader allows us to experience Audubons distinctive voice directly and provides a window into his electrifying encounter with early with its wildlife and birds its people and its primordial wilderness.
language: English
title: The Audubon Reader: Edited and Introduced by Richard Rhodes
publisher: Everyman's Library