INTRODUCTION 17 



accuracy, for errors of various sorts and confused and 

 conflicting statements are far too common. 



Of the more formal biographies of Audubon, the 

 first to appear was a slender volume entitled Audubon: 

 the Naturalist of the New World, by Mrs. Horace Steb- 

 bing Roscoe St. John, published in England in 1856. 8 

 In the same year this work was expanded and reissued 

 by the publishers who at that time had charge of the 

 sale of Audubon's works in America. 9 The American 

 publishers explained in their edition that inasmuch as 

 "the fair authoress in preparing her interesting sketch 

 of Audubon . . . appears not to have been aware of 

 the publication of his second great work, the Quadru- 

 peds of North America (which had not been advertised, 

 we believe, in Europe) they have taken the liberty of 

 giving some account of it and making numerous ex- 

 tracts from its pages." 10 Perhaps the most interesting 

 or valuable things in this little volume at the present 

 day are the woodcut on the title page showing Audu- 

 bon's house on the Hudson as it then appeared, sur- 

 rounded by tall trees, and, inserted on a flyleaf, a list 

 of all of Audubon's published works and the prices at 

 which they could be procured in New York just prior 

 to the Civil War (see Note, Vol. I, p. 204). 



8 In this year Charles Lanman, writer, and at a later time librarian of 

 the Library of Congress, wrote to Victor Audubon as follows: "Are not 

 you and your family willing now to let me write a book about your 

 illustrious father? I feel confident that I could get up something very 

 interesting and which would not only help the big work, but make money. 

 I could have it brought out in handsome style, and should like to have 

 well engraved a portrait and some half dozen views in Kentucky, Louisiana, 

 and on the Hudson. Write me what you think about it." Lanman's letter 

 is dated "Georgetown, D. C., Oct. 8, 1856"; on November 1 Victor 

 Audubon replied, declining the proposal. 



9 Messrs. C. S. Francis & Company, of 554 Broadway, New York. 



10 The publishers in this instance do not appear to have been better 

 informed, for the text of the Quadrupeds, from which they quote, was 

 written by John Bachman, and the first volume of it was issued in London 

 in 1847; see Bibliography, No. 6. 



