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This page lists books that focus on John James Audubon artwork with the exception of editions and reprints of Birds Of America. The books are ordered by publication date with the most recent at the top of the page.

Birds Of America:
- Double Elephant edition
- Royal Octavo edition
- Later editions

Ornithological Biography

Other artwork books

Biographical books

Audubon's Journals

Miscellaneous

Audubon's Aviary: The Original Watercolors for the Birds of America

Roberta J.M. olsen

2012

"A national treasure is celebrated in this landmark publication. The Birds of America is a monumental classic, but it has never been explored like this before. This important new volume presents all the dazzling watercolors that Audubon painted for these monumental engravings. We are familiar with the prints engraved by Robert Havell Jr., but Audubon’s Aviary illuminates the original masterpieces that were created by Audubon himself and tells the story behind their creation with fresh insights and engaging quotes from his writings. These powerful paintings—all newly photographed using state-of-the-art techniques—possess a startling immediacy, vibrancy, and fluidity that link natural history, art, and a respect for the environment. These watercolors transmit Audubon’s devotion to his craft with their inscriptions and layers of media wrought with a miniaturist’s attention to detail and their revolutionary compositions, which for the first time in history depicted all the birds life-size."

Audubon: Beyond Birds: Plant Portraits and Conservation Heritage of John James Audubon

E. Small, P..M Catling, J. Cayouette & B. Brookes

2009

"In the last 2 centuries, dozens of books have been produced, either stressing Audubon's work as pure art or documenting the animals that were painted. The present volume is unique in emphasizing the plants that Audubon frequently illustrated along with his animals. Full colour reproductions are shown of more than 100 of Audubon's best paintings, chosen for their excellent portrayal of plants. Each magnificent full page plate is accompanied by information on the animals (mostly birds), the painting and (most particularly) the plants. An introductory, extensively illustrated chapter details Audubon's life and career – a fascinating story of heroic achievements in the face of great obstacles. A second chapter deals with Audubon's conservation legacy, a topic of considerable importance to the world's ongoing crises related to loss of biodiversity, degradation of the environment and global warming."

Audubon: Early Drawings

Richard Rhodes, Scott V Edwards and Leslie A Morris

2008

"In 1805, Jean Jacques Audubon was a twenty-year-old itinerant Frenchman of ignoble birth and indifferent education who had fled revolutionary violence in Haiti and then France to take refuge in frontier America. Ten years later, John James Audubon was an American citizen, entrepreneur, and family man whose fervent desire to "become acquainted with nature" had led him to reinvent himself as a naturalist and artist whose study of birds would soon earn him international acclaim. The drawings he made during this crucial decade—sold to Audubon’s friend and patron Edward Harris to help fund his masterwork The Birds of America, and now held by Harvard’s Houghton Library and Museum of Comparative Zoology—are published together here for the first time in large format and full color. In these 116 portraits of species collected in America and in Europe we see Audubon inventing his ingenious methods of posing and depicting his subjects, and we trace his development into a scientist and an artist who could proudly sign his artworks "drawn from Nature." The drawings also serve as a record of the birds found in Europe and the Eastern United States in the early nineteenth century, some now rare or extinct."

Audubon's Wilderness Palette: The Birds of Canada

David M. Lank

1998

"In the summer of 1833, John James Audubon, his son and several friends embarked on the schooner Ripley and sailed from Eastport, Maine to Nova Scotia to the St. Lawrence. Audubon kept a detailed diary describing the land, the sea, the vegetation, the people and, above all, the birds that he encountered. Many of the paintings he created along the way are considered his most beautiful and are reproduced here in Audubon's Wilderness Palette. Many of the birds represented here have become extinct or are threatened. With the strokes of his brush, Audubon has in many ways preserved a natural legacy, permitting those who view his paintings and engravings the opportunity to visit a world that has vanished."

John James Audubon: The Watercolours for The Birds of America

A. Blaugrund, T.E. Stebbins

1993

"All 471 of Audubon's original watercolours are reproduced in this book, with 95 given special full-page display accompanied by extensive ornithological and artistic information and analysis. The original watercolours, which frequently differ from the more usually seen engravings made from them, reveal Audubon's skill as an artist. Recently restored by the New York Historical Society, where they are kept, these paintings can be seen in this book in their original colours. Essays by leading art historians and curators examine Audubon as artist, naturalist and entrepreneur as well as discussing the watercolours themselves."

The Art of Audubon: The Complete Birds and Mammals

John James Audubon

Times Books / Random House

1979

Audubon's wildlife: With selections from the writings of John James Audubon

John James Audubon

Edwin Way Teale

1964

27 color plates, 80 monochrome plates, plus a selection from Audubon's writing.

Audubon's Butterflies, Moths, And Other Studies

Compiles & Edited by Alice Ford

1952