John James Audubon
The Birds of America 1840

 J.J. Audubon (1785-1851) was America's premier bird artist, and his premier work was the double-elephant edition of Birds of America (1838).  This magnificent work, pubiished by Robert Havell and Sons in Endinburgh and London (1827-1838), was very expensive to purchase in the 1820's ($1000 per set) but Audubon managed to complete approximately 200 complete volumes of the work.  To make Birds affordable to a much broader audience, Audubon worked with his publisher in New York, J.T. Bowen,  to reduce the size of the plates and they produced the first Octavo size edition (1840-1844).  The quality of the Octavo editions was excellent with beautiful hand-coloring; up to six different editions were published in the United States.