Audubon, John James:

$50,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

[AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT FROM THE ORNITHOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY, "THE PRAIRIE" AND "B.P. AND THE POLE CAT"]. An extraordinary manuscript by Audubon, in which he recounts the dramatic tale of an attempt on his life by a murderous old woman in a lonely farmhouse in the Mississippi Valley where he had stopped to spend the night. Integral with this episode is a humorous story of an encounter with a polecat (i.e. skunk). The text bears Audubon's corrections throughout, with a few additional annotations by the editor of his Journals, Elliot Coues. A sketch of a stag appears on page five overlaid with the text of the polecat story, but possibly relates to the first episode, which features two "tall strappling Youths....bearing a Dead Deer on a Pole," text that would be published as "two athletic youths...bearing a dead stag on a pole." The present manuscript contains numerous variations from the published text. These episodes appear on pages 81-84 and 310-312 in volume one of his Ornithological Biography, the separately issued text that accompanied the elephant folio of Birds of America. As early as November 1826, Audubon had begun thinking about the text that should accompany his monumental engravings, noting in his Journals: "I shall publish the letterpress in a separate book, at the same time with the illustrations and shall accompany the descriptions of the birds with many anecdotes and accounts of localities connected with the birds themselves...." Work on the text did not begin in ear

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.