The Quadrupeds of North America - First quarto edition, 3 Vol., 1849, 1851, 1854

New York: Victor Gifford Audubon, 1854. First quarto edition. Leatherbound Hardcovers. J.J. and J.W. Audubon. New York, Victor Gifford Audubon, 1849, 1851, 1854, First Octavo Edition, Full leather binding

Half-title pages present in vol 1 and 3, not in vol 2. Illustrated with 155 hand-colored lithographed plates with tissue guards present after J.J. and J.W. Audubon, drawn on stone by W.E. Hitchcock, lithographed & colored by J.T. Bowen; tissue guards. (Large 8vo) 10½x6¾" (26.5x17 cm), tight, full black leather binding, front with gilded squirrel on a tree on all three volumes, back cover with the same image cold-pressed without gilding. Gilt decorations on all sides incl. inner dentelles, spines lettered in gilt, white endpapers, all paper edges gilt. Most tissue guards with more or less foxing. Hardly any foxing on the pages and when, only in the margins. Paper very slightly browned and with the occasional finger smudges in the margins of the plate pages.

Famed collaboration between Audubon and his sons, John Woodhouse Audubon and Victor Gifford Audubon, and the Lutheran minister John Bachman. They traveled through much newly explored territory of the United States, drawing and painting many species that are scarce or endangered, or even extinct, today. Beautiful hand-colored plates of hares, squirrels, buffalo, wolves, deer, grizzly bears, etc. The octavo edition was first issued in parts between 1849 and 1854. V.G. Audubon published the first three octavo editions.

Publication dates on the title and copyright pages are: volume I 1849"; volume III 1854; volume II on title page MDCCLI [i.e. 1851] and on copyright page 1851.

Of the 155 plates, 150 are from the earlier folio edition, the remaining 5 from the 6 issued in the 1854 supplement. The five supplemental plates are:


151: Jackall Fox C L I

152: Weasel-Like Squirrel/Large Leuisiana Black Squirrel C L II

153: Col. Abert's Squirrel/California Gray Squirrel C L III

154: Harris's Marmot Squirrel/California Meadow Mouse C L IV

155: Crab-Eating Racoon C L V.