John James Audubon and The Birds of America: Why This Massive Book Still Matters

It is huge. Seriously.

If you’ve ever seen a copy of The Birds of America in person, the first thing that hits you isn't the art or the history—it’s the sheer, ridiculous scale of the thing. We are talking about "Double Elephant Folio" paper. That’s roughly 39.5 inches tall. Why? Because John James Audubon was a bit of a perfectionist, and he insisted that every single bird be painted life-sized.

Imagine trying to fit a American Flamingo or a Wild Turkey onto a standard sheet of printer paper. It doesn't work. You’d have to shrink them, and Audubon wasn't about to do that. He wanted you to feel the wind from their wings. He wanted the feathers to look like you could reach out and pluck them.

Honestly, the story behind this book is just as wild as the birds inside it. It’s a tale of obsession, near-bankruptcy, and a guy who basically walked across a young America with a gun in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. It’s not just a dusty old bird book; it’s a foundational piece of American culture that almost didn't happen.

The Man Behind the Legend (And the Controversy)

John James Audubon wasn't actually born in America. He was born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and raised in France. He came to the States to avoid being drafted into Napoleon's army, which, let’s be real, is a pretty relatable move. He landed in Pennsylvania and eventually moved out to the frontier of Kentucky.

He wasn't a "scientist" in the way we think of them today. He didn't have a PhD. He was an artist, a woodsman, and—crucially—a hunter.

This is where people get a little squeamish today. To paint these birds with such vivid detail, Audubon had to shoot them. Lots of them. He’d use wire to prop up the carcasses in lifelike positions so he could study the anatomy before the colors faded or the bodies decayed. It sounds gruesome because it was. But in the 1820s, there were no high-speed cameras or 600mm lenses. If you wanted to see the intricate barbs on a feather, the bird had to be still.

Why nobody in America wanted to fund him

When Audubon finished his initial drawings, he tried to get them published in Philadelphia. The scientific establishment there basically laughed at him. They already had a "bird guy"—Alexander Wilson—and they didn't appreciate this self-taught Frenchman showing up with bigger, flashier paintings.

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So, Audubon did what any desperate entrepreneur would do: he hopped on a boat to England.

He played up the "American Woodsman" persona. He wore buckskins. He let his hair grow long and greased it with bear fat. The British elite loved it. They ate up the image of the wild American artist, and that’s how he found the subscribers he needed to fund the most ambitious printing project in history.

How The Birds of America Was Actually Made

This wasn't a "book" in the sense that you could walk into a shop and buy it off a shelf. Between 1827 and 1838, it was released in "numbers" or sets.

A subscriber would pay for a set of five prints at a time. Each set usually included one big bird (like a Great Blue Heron), one medium-sized bird, and three small ones (warblers or finches). There were 435 plates in total.

The process was agonizing:

1. Audubon would finish a watercolor painting.
2. Robert Havell Jr., a master engraver in London, would etch the image onto a massive copper plate.
3. The plates were printed in black and white.
4. A literal army of colorists—often women working in assembly lines—would hand-paint every single sheet according to Audubon’s original colors.

Think about the margin for error there. If one colorist had a bad day or a shaky hand, a whole batch of flamingos might look "off." Yet, the consistency across the surviving copies is staggering.

The Price of Greatness: Is it Really Worth Millions?

You might have seen headlines about The Birds of America selling at auction for $10 million or $12 million. That’s not a typo. It is consistently one of the most expensive printed books in the world.

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But why?

Supply and demand, mostly. It’s estimated that only about 200 complete sets of the original Double Elephant Folio were ever produced. Today, only about 120 are known to exist, and the vast majority of those are locked away in museums or university libraries (like Yale or the University of Pittsburgh). When one hits the private market, it’s a bloodbath among collectors.

The "Breaking" Problem

There is a sad side to the value of these books. Because individual plates (like the Snowy Owl or the Carolina Parakeet) are so iconic, many copies of the book were "broken." This means dealers literally cut the pages out to frame and sell them individually.

While this made the art more accessible to people who couldn't afford a $10 million book, it destroyed the integrity of the original sets. Finding a "complete" Audubon in its original binding is like finding a unicorn.

Birds That No Longer Exist

One of the most haunting things about flipping through The Birds of America is seeing the ghosts.

Audubon captured species that were common in the 1830s but are now gone forever.

• The Passenger Pigeon: Once numbering in the billions, they were hunted to extinction by 1914. Audubon’s painting shows them in a tender, fluttering moment that feels incredibly alive.
• The Carolina Parakeet: America’s only native parrot. They were considered pests by farmers and killed off.
• The Ivory-billed Woodpecker: The "Lord God Bird." While there are occasional "sightings" reported in the deep swamps of the South, it is widely considered extinct.

Audubon didn't know these birds were going to vanish. He actually wrote about the "incredible" numbers of Passenger Pigeons, thinking they could never be exhausted. Seeing them in his book is a gut-punch reminder of what we've lost.

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Dealing With the Audubon Controversy in 2026

We can't talk about this book without talking about the man's darker side. In recent years, organizations like the National Audubon Society have had to grapple with the fact that John James Audubon was an enslaver. He also held views on race that were dismissive and white supremacist, even by the standards of his time.

Some people want to "cancel" the book; others want to separate the art from the artist.

The reality is complicated. You can acknowledge that The Birds of America is a masterpiece of ornithology and art while also acknowledging that the man who created it was deeply flawed and participated in a brutal system of labor. Most modern curators now present the book with this context included. It’s not about erasing the art, but about telling the whole story—the buckskins, the birds, and the people Audubon exploited to get his work done.

How to See It Without Spending $10 Million

Most of us aren't going to have a Double Elephant Folio in our living rooms. Thankfully, there are ways to experience it.

1. Digital Archives: The National Audubon Society has digitized every single one of the 435 plates in high resolution. You can zoom in and see the individual brushstrokes for free on their website.
2. The "Baby" Audubons: Later in his life, Audubon released "Octavo" editions. These are much smaller (about 10 inches tall) and were printed using lithography rather than copperplate engraving. They are still old, still beautiful, and much more affordable for collectors.
3. Public Rotations: Places like the New-York Historical Society or the Cleveland Museum of Natural History often have a copy on display. Because the light can fade the hand-painted colors, they usually only display one page at a time and turn it every few weeks.

Actionable Steps for Bird and Art Lovers

If you're fascinated by this era of natural history, don't just stop at reading about it.

• Visit a Local Museum: Check if your state university or city library has an "Incunabula" or "Special Collections" department. You’d be surprised how many random cities in the U.S. own a copy of the Octavo or even the Folio.
• Compare the Art: Look at Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology alongside Audubon’s. You’ll instantly see why Audubon changed the game. Wilson’s birds look like stiff, stuffed specimens; Audubon’s birds look like they’re in the middle of a fight or a meal.
• Support Conservation: The best way to honor the legacy of the book is to make sure the birds still in it don't end up like the Passenger Pigeon. Support groups like the American Bird Conservancy that work on habitat preservation.
• Check Your Attic: Seriously. Thousands of "Audubon prints" were mass-produced in the 20th century (especially the Amsterdam and Abbeville editions). While they aren't worth millions, some high-quality mid-century reproductions still have decent value. Look for a watermark or signs of "plate marks" (an indentation in the paper from the copper plate).

The Birds of America is more than just a catalog of feathers. It’s a snapshot of a wilder, more vibrant continent, captured by a man who was as messy and complex as the country he adopted. Whether you love it for the art or study it for the history, it remains the ultimate intersection of science and soul.