Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time. Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Francis Hobart Herrick

Shakespeare, Othello to his biographers.

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.

Huxley.

What a curious, interesting book, a biographer, well acquainted with my life, could write; it is still more wonderful and extraordinary than that of my father.

Audubon, in letter to his wife, March 12, 1828.

AUDUBON
THE
NATURALIST

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

Audubon's growing fame—Experience in Paris in 1828—Cuvier's patronage—Audubon's publications—His critics—His talents and accomplishments—His Americanism and honesty of purpose—His foibles and faults—Appreciations and monuments—The Audubon Societies—Biographies and autobiography—Robert Buchanan and the true history of his Life of Audubon.