LIFE AT "MINNIES LAND" 217 



for loose no time in urging Mr. Bowen (write to him) and 

 Chevalier also on this all important subject. 



If ever I was in want of assistance it is at this moment and 

 you my dear Victor must be on the alert and second my en- 

 deavors to render you all Happy ! I would be delighted to have 

 a few lines from Mamma and Eliza at the end of your next 

 letter, which I hope to receive in immediate answer to this, Here. 

 I have marked all your items in your last letter. Call from time 

 to time at the Mercantile Library. I am glad you have re- 

 mitted to the Rathbone's. Do write to Mr. Hoppenstall and 

 see the daughter of Capt. Brittan. I was invited last evening 

 to a great ball, and should have gone had not my accident of 

 shin bones prevented me. I am told that I would have had some 

 20 names there. 



Recollect that our agents name is Gideon B. Smith and a 

 most worthy man he is, highly recommended by Robert Gilmor 



and others. 



[No signature] 



To the gratification of Audubon and his friends, the 

 octavo edition of his Birds of America was an imme- 

 diate and great success. Only 300 copies of the plates 

 of the first number, which was ready on December 3, 

 1839, were printed, but in little more than a month 

 300 more were demanded, and the number of plates re- 

 quired rose steadily until January 9, 1841, when it stood 

 at 1,475 copies. 5 The total number of subscribers given 



°See "Original Account Book of J. J. Audubon" (Bibl. No. 223), The 

 Nation, vol. lxxxiv, from which the following data regarding issues and 

 sales of this work are drawn. The total edition of the plates for No. 2 

 was 1,345, and of No. 3, 1,339. No. 11 of the plates was the first to run 

 to 1,000 copies in the first printing, and this issue was continued to No. 

 50, inclusive, excepting Nos. 3, 28, 29, and 30, of which 1,500 seem to have 

 been printed; the plates of these numbers were done at the lithographic 

 establishment of Endicotts, New York, all others being the work of J. T. 

 Bowen, Philadelphia. When subscriptions began to fall off with No. 51, 

 the edition was reduced to 1,150, and again with No. 57, to 1,050, which 

 remained constant to No. 84, or as far as this record goes. Of the text, 

 printed by E. G. Dorsey, 1,200 copies formed the first edition of No. 1, 



