Birds of America - Tapa dura

'Natural history books have to compete with the BBC's Frozen Planet, and the Natural History Museum's The Birds of America does just that.' --Time Out

'Mesmerising' --The Observer

'The Natural History Museum has now reproduced a glorious complete edition.' --The Bookseller

Birds of America is one of the best known natural history books ever produced and also one of the most valuable - a complete set sold at auction in December 2010 for £7.3 million, which is a world record. First published in double elephant size (approximately a metre tall) in the first half of the nineteenth century, it is famous for its stunning life-size illustrations of birds set within landscaped backgrounds. The book was issued in parts over eleven years and only around 200 completed sets were ever produced. Less than 120 of these survive today, locked away in museums, galleries and private collections around the world. To create this complete edition of Audubon's masterpiece, each of the 435 beautiful hand-coloured prints was specially photographed from the Natural History Museum's own original edition. The artworks are accompanied by the scientific descriptions that were used in the original Birds of America and there is also a new introduction by world-renowned bird artist, ornithologist and author David Allen Sibley.