18 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



In 1868 there appeared in England a work of com- 

 bined and confused authorship, commonly referred to 

 as "Buchanan's Life of Audubon' 3 the "sub-editor," as 

 he called himself, having since become better known as 

 an original, skilled and prolific writer of verse, drama, 

 fiction and literary criticism. At that time Robert 

 Buchanan was twenty-six years old, and had published 

 five volumes of poems in rapid succession, some of which 

 had been received with favor by the public. A second 

 and third edition of this Life followed in 1869. Finally 

 the work was resurrected and again sent to press, unre- 

 vised, in 1912, when it appeared in "Everyman's 

 Library," at a shilling a copy, with an introduction 

 which had served as a review of the work in 1869. 



A recent biographer of Alexander Wilson speaks of 

 Buchanan as "commissioned by Mrs. Audubon to write 

 her husband's life," but the lady herself, as well as 

 Buchanan, has told a different story. It seems that in 

 about the year 1866, Mrs. Audubon prepared, "with the 

 aid of a friend," an extended memoir of her husband, 

 which was offered to an American publisher but with- 

 out success. The "friend," at whose home Mrs. Audu- 

 bon was then living, was the Rev. Charles Coffin 

 Adams, 11 rector of St. Mary's Church, Manhattanville, 

 now 135th, Street, New York. The Adams manuscript s 

 which consisted chiefly of a transcript from the natural- 

 ist's journals, then in possession of his wife, was com- 

 pleted presumably in 1867. In the summer of that year 

 it was placed in the hands of the London publishers, 



"Rev. Dr. Adams was rector of this parish for twenty-five years, from 

 1863 to his death in February, 1888; he was the author of three volumes on 

 religious subjects and various smaller tracts; from 1855 to 1863 he had 

 charge of a church in Baltimore, Maryland, and while there published 

 an anonymous pamphlet entitled "Slavery by a Marylander; Its Institu- 

 tion and Origin; Its Status Under the Law and Under the Gospel" 

 (8 pp. 8vo. Baltimore, 1860). 



