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Audubon at Sea: The Coastal and Transatlantic Adventures of John James Audubon

edited by Christoph Irmscher and Richard J. King
foreword by Subhankar Banerjee

University of Chicago Press, 2022
Cloth: 978-0-226-75667-7 | eISBN: 978-0-226-75670-7
Library of Congress Classification QL31.A9A223 2022
Dewey Decimal Classification 598.092

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK
This one-of-a-kind, lavishly illustrated anthology celebrates Audubon’s connection to the sea through both his words and art.

The American naturalist John James Audubon (1785–1851) is widely remembered for his iconic paintings of American birdlife. But as this anthology makes clear, Audubon was also a brilliant writer—and his keen gaze took in far more than creatures of the sky. Culled from his published and unpublished writings, Audubon at Sea explores Audubon’s diverse observations of the ocean, the coast, and their human and animal inhabitants. With Audubon expert Christoph Irmscher and scholar of the sea Richard J. King as our guides, we set sail from the humid expanses of the American South to the shores of England and the chilly landscapes of the Canadian North. We learn not only about the diversity of sea life Audubon documented—birds, sharks, fish, and whales—but also about life aboard ship, travel in early America, Audubon’s work habits, and the origins of beloved paintings. As we face an unfathomable loss of seabirds today, Audubon’s warnings about the fragility of birdlife in his time are prescient and newly relevant.

Charting the course of Audubon’s life and work, from his birth in Haiti to his death in New York City, Irmscher and King’s sweeping introduction and carefully drawn commentary confront the challenges Audubon’s legacy poses for us today, including his participation in American slavery and the thousands of birds he killed for his art. Rounded out by hundreds of historical and ornithological notes and beautiful illustrations, and with a foreword by distinguished photographer and conservationist Subhankar Banerjee, Audubon at Sea is the most comprehensively annotated collection of Audubon’s work ever published.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Christoph Irmscher directs the Wells Scholars Program at Indiana University Bloomington, where he is also distinguished professor of English. Among his many books are The Poetics of Natural History and Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science. For more information, visit http://christophirmscher.com. Richard J. King is visiting associate professor of maritime literature and history at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He is the author, most recently, of Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of “Moby-Dick.” For more information, visit http://www.richardjking.info/.

REVIEWS

“These excellent selections are a wonderful reminder of why Audubon’s writing deserves to be more widely read. Audubon at Sea is a delightful, captivating book, one that ranges to different regions and seasons, and features not only birds but fish, marine mammals, and many passages of interest concerning fishing, hunting, and collecting practices. Irmscher and King’s expertise is impressive, and their introductions are helpful, informative, and beautifully written. The notes are also truly remarkable: extremely well-informed, instructive, and detailed. This is a superb read.”

— Michael P. Branch, professor of literature and the environment, University of Nevada, Reno, author of "On the Trail of the Jackalope"

"While of course best-known for his definitive depictions of American birdlife, John James Audubon also wrote about his extensive travels at sea, from the American South to the shores of England and the frozen Canadian North. This is as much an ecological account as a narrative of his travels, however, with Audubon's concerns for the natural world still relevant today."

— Bookseller

“A must-read for lovers of the sea and of avian species plying its waters and gracing its shores—this timely, eloquent collaboration between an Audubon scholar and a noted writer on the sea is a plea to save not only birds and their habitats but also wildlife and planet Earth. In Audubon at Sea, Irmscher and King offer a fascinating porthole to a new perspective on the brilliant artist-naturalist and nature writer as well as his portrayals of waterbirds. Reconsidering Audubon’s triumphs and human failings with novel insights, the book celebrates the waterbirds of his Birds of America against a historical maritime and scientific backdrop. In the process, it makes a significant contribution to Audubon studies and underlines, beyond the so-called fallacy of the inexhaustible, the acute loss in biodiversity that threatens the extinction of avifauna.”

— Roberta J. M. Olson, curator and author of numerous books, including "Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for ‘The Birds of America’" and two forthcoming on the artist-naturalist

“Audubon at Sea shines a bright light on, and makes visible, three overlooked but significant aspects of Audubon’s work and legacy: his writings on waterbirds as they evolved from imperfect to polished and lyrical prose; his seabird drawings, like the unforgettable ‘Gannet’; and a new focus especially on the seabirds that are now in peril even if they remain out of our sight. The book adds a significant new chapter in our understanding and appreciation of Audubon as an imperfect and troubled nineteenth-century polymath—an artist, ornithologist, writer. Audubon’s work will live on in new debates and conversations, in which Audubon at Sea will play an important role.”

— Subhankar Banerjee, from the foreword

"In a new selection of John James Audubon’s oceangoing writings, we sense his obsessive quest to draw every bird he saw, even though he disliked being on the water. . . . Audubon at Sea . . . asks us to imagine this landsman 'challenged, on a deeply existential level, by an environment where he couldn’t rely on the instincts that normally made him such an effective observer and hunter of birds.' The focus is on Audubon as writer as much as artist, and the effect is strange and powerful. The texts are impeccably edited by Christoph Irmscher and Richard J. King. (King selected them, Irmscher wrote the eloquent introduction and headnotes, and they collaborated on the wide-ranging notes.) . . . Despite Audubon’s lapses into flowery overwriting, the extracts in this volume make for captivating reading, sweeping us from the reefs of the Florida Keys up the Atlantic Seaboard to the icy rocks of the Canadian Maritimes. Everywhere we feel the pressure of his obsessive quest to record and draw every bird he could, and his journals in particular expose all the moody complexity of a man Irmscher describes as 'passionate, outrageous, salty, vain, and brutal, despondent, vulnerable, sentimental, self-ironical, and tender.'"

— Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books

"This is not a picture book, although there are plenty of Audubon’s sketches and reproductions of his finished artwork in these pages. This is a book of Audubon’s words, some of which were intended for publication and others which were more private jottings, or accounts meant for the later reading by his family. In our age, some of the accounts here would be Audubon’s blog posts. . . . These 300+ pages are full of interest and I very much enjoyed them."

— Mark Avery, markavery.info

"The book comprises a series of extracts from Audubon’s own writings and diaries, together with exquisite line drawings, and twenty color plates showing the finished paintings. Both his writings and illustrations reveal him to have been an acute and perceptive observer of the natural world. . . . Today, when so many of the marine and coastal species face threats from pollution, habitat loss, and the climate crisis, we can learn from this master of painting and prose."

— Country Life

"A must have for those with an interest in Audubon and/or marine ornithology history."

— Birdbooker Report

"This book has amazing, fascinating, descriptive material, particularly from the coasts of America, and much perceptive insight into the lives of birds."

— Birdwatch

"Audubon may be best known for his elegant illustrations of birds and animals, but he was also a colorful and talented writer, and a scientist, capable of keen observations. King and Irmscher have collected a selection of Audubon’s lesser-known writings about seabirds and their watery environment, including his journal of a collecting voyage from Eastport, Maine, to Labrador. The editors give context to Audubon’s work with essays and detailed footnotes about the man and his many contradictions, including mass killing of birds in order to preserve them."

— Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors

“Audubon at Sea . . . uses the ornithologist’s own words to force us to see him in a new light.”

— Erin Blakemore, Washington Post

"The editors and authors of Audubon at Sea, by carefully editing and selecting certain materials, create a more complex image of the bird artist. This book will likely change forever how you think about John James Audubon."

— Mark Lynch, Bird Observer

"Culled from John James Audubon's published and unpublished writings, Audubon at Sea explores Audubon's diverse observations of the ocean, the coast, and their human and animal inhabitants."

— Birdwatching

"History will not let Audubon off so easily, but I am heartened by a recent book that strikes me as a model for living with this difficult figure, and for showing us who we are in relation to him. Audubon at Sea . . . brings us the artist’s writing about and drawings of seabirds along with an introduction, essay, and many wide-ranging and revelatory notes that supply a richer history of the man and his time than most biographies."

— Magazine Antiques

"Irmscher and King, hailing respectively from the disciplines of English and history, have compiled an anthology consisting of excerpts from Audubon’s lesser-known published and unpublished writings related to water birds and seabirds. . . Overall, this work focuses on a lesser-known aspect of Audubon’s life and will be a welcome addition to natural history collections."

— Choice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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