The Quadrupeds of North America. New York: V.G. Audubon, 1849-51-54.
3 volumes. Large 8vo (270 x 180 mm). Half-titles in volumes 1 and 3. 155 hand-finished colour lithographed plates by J.T. Bowen from drawings on stone by W. E. Hitchcock and R. Trembley, after J.A. and J.W. Audubon. Period green morocco, elaborately blocked in gilt and blind, gilt turn-ins, yellow-glazed endpapers, gilt edges. Plates 54 in vol 2, 101 and 118 in vol 3 detached and with tears and chips to blank margins, binding of vol 1 rebacked with original spine laid down, vols 2 and 3 with splits to front inner hinges and scuffing to joints and extremities, spines somewhat discolored.
Provenance: Samuel Appleton (1766-1853, armorial bookplate); Anna L. Rodman (various signatures and inscriptions).

FIRST OCTAVO EDITION OF AUDUBON'S FINAL GREAT NATURAL HISTORY WORK, with plates and descriptions of the quadrupeds of the United States including Texas, California and Oregon, as well as part of Mexico, the British and Russian possessions and Arctic regions. Audubon's collaborator on the Quadrupeds was the naturalist and Lutheran clergyman John Bachman who had studied quadrupeds since he was a young man and was a recognized authority on the subject in the United States. The two began their association when Audubon stayed with Bachman and his family in Charleston for a month in 1831, this friendship was later cemented by the marriage of Victor and John W. Audubon to Bachman's daughters, Maria and Eliza. The Quadrupeds was first published in a folio format. The present first octavo edition, issued in response to the success of a similar edition of The Birds of America, contains all of the original 150 plates, with 5 of the 6 supplemental plates, reduced by means of the camera lucida. It was prepared for the press and published by Audubon's sons, John W. and Victor, shortly after their father's death in January, 1851. Audubon, himself, because of declining health, had only been able to sketch about half of the animals included in the final publication—the remainder being drawn by John W., with most of the scientific details in the text witten by Bachman. With the completion of the third volume in 1854 the quartet of natural history works as envisaged by Audubon was complete. Bennett, p 5; Nissen ZBI 163; Reese Stamped With A National Character 38; Sabin 2638; Wood p 208.