Contains 435 hand-colored plates in double elephant folio format, originally issued in 87 parts. The birds of America is widely regarded as the greatest illustrated ornithological work ever published, and one of the greatest works of natural history illustration ever created.

• Imprint dates: v. 1, 1827-30; v. 2, 1831-34; v. 3, 1834-35; v. 4, 1835-38, June 20.
• Plate LXIV drawn from nature by Lucy Audubon.
• Plates I-II, VI-VII engraved by W [illiam] H[ome] Lizars, retouched by R [obert] Havell, junr.; pl VIII-IX engraved by W.H. Lizars; pl. III-V, CI-CV, CVIII, CX engraved, printed and coloured by R. Havell, junr.; pl. X-C, CVI-CVII, CIX, CXII-CCCCXXXV engraved, printed and coloured by R. Havell.
• Plates II, VII dated 1829; pl. CVI-CX, CXII-CVX dated 1831; pl. CXXXI-CXL, CXLIII-CLV dated 1832; pl. CLVI-CLXXVII, CLXXIX-CLXXXII, CLXXXIV-CLXXXV dated 1833; pl. CLXXXVI-CXCVII, CXCIX, CCII-CCXXXV dated 1834; pl. CCXXXVI-CCLXXXV, CCLXXXVII, CCLXXXIX-CCXC dated 1835; pl. CCLXXXVI, CCLXXXVIII, CCXCI-CCCL dated 1836; pl. CCCLI-CCCC dated 1837; pl. CCCCI-CCCCXXXV dated 1838.
• Plate CCLX marked "CCXL".

This was the text for Aububon's The birds of America. Audubon wrote it with the assistance of William Macgillivray, though he did not credit him on the title page. The text included Audubon's accounts of his travels and adventures in America scattered through the volumes in the bird descriptions, and as separate anecdotes. Audubon recounted his experiences in the Florida Keys, along the Mississippi, and in Louisiana and Kentucky in the 1820s and 1830s.

Audubon published the text separately from the double elephant folio plates in order to avoid a stricture of the British Copyright Act of 1709 which would have required him to deposit a set of the very expensive double elephant folio plates with each of nine depository libraries in the United Kingdom.

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

This was Audubon's extensively annotated systematic index, or a kind of scientific outline, to the double elephant folio, Birds of America. With 359 pages it amounted to a separate work, and could be studied without access to the images.  Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Audubon created 65 new images for the octavo edition, supplementing the original 435 in the double-elephant folio edition of 1827-1838. The resulting series of 500 chromolithographed plates constituted the most extensive American color-plate book produced up to that time. The Philadelphia printer J.T. Bowen reduced the double-elephant folio plates by camera lucida. The original configurations of the elephant folio were altered so that only one species is depicted per plate, and the resulting chromolithographs incorporated significant changes in the backgrounds and compositions. The text in the Ornithological biography was rearranged according to Audubon's A synopsis of the birds of North America (1839).  Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

The largest and most significant color plate book produced in America during the 19th century. 

A biographical study by his grand-daughter, based on previously unpublished letters and journals of John James Audubon. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

First printed edition of the "virtually complete" series of original water-color paintings for Audubon's The Birds of America, preserved in The New York Historical Society.