Audubon's Birds of America

This digital collection provides access to the color plates inside lithographer Julius Bien’s rare edition of Audubon’s Birds of America, published in 1860 in New York.  The Bien volume was produced entirely in America, unlike the famous 1838 engraved edition, which was printed in Scotland and England by W.H. Lizars and Robert Havell. Begun seven years after the death of John James Audubon, the Bien set was intended to provide a more affordable edition of the Birds of America, appropriate for educational institutions.  History would intervene, however, making the Bien edition more rare today than even the original Lizars/Havell set.