Bowen Royal Octavo Gallery - Birds of America

Bowen Editions

Royal Octavo Birds (1840 - 1871)

1^st Royal Octavo Edition

When the Havell folio was nearly complete, Audubon began work on a smaller edition which could be made more widely available, and would contain the text of his Ornithological Biography. He conceived an octavo edition, 1/8 the size of the originals at 6½ by 10½ inches, and commissioned J.T. Bowen of Philadelphia to create lithographic prints. This relatively new method of reproduction used greasy inks on a water-washed stone; the ink printed onto the paper and the stone could be used many times without wearing away as the etched lines on the engraved copper plates would do. These single-color lithographs were also hand painted, like the aquatints. Bowen used the camera lucida process to project a smaller, reversed image of the full-sized prints onto the stone for copying. Audubon increased the number of plates from 435 to 500, separating into individual images some birds which were originally portrayed together on a single plate. The first edition was published in 1840-1844 and numbered 1,198 copies.

Publication data on the first edition:

Vol.	Parts	Plates	Date
I	1-14	1-70	1840
II	15-28	71-140	1841
III	29-42	141-210	1841
IV	43-56	211-280	1842
V	57-70	281-350	1842
VI	71-84	351-420	1843
VII	85-100	421-500	1844
This chart is from: Handbook of Audubon Prints by Lois Elmer Bannon and Taylor Clark Fourth Edition, 1998 ISBN 1-56554-428-5

2^nd and Subsequent Editions

Second and subsequent editions are similar to the first edition except that the prints have tinted lithographic-wash backgrounds. While several prints in the first edition have colored backgrounds, they were hand-colored. These editions are difficult to identify once they have been removed from their bindings, as there are no edition-indicators on the prints.

Edition	Year of Publication	Publisher
First	1840-1844	J.J. Audubon & J.B. Chevalier
Second	1856	J.W. Audubon & V.G. Audubon
Third	1859	J.W. Audubon & V.G. Audubon
Fourth	1860	Roe Lockwood
Fifth	1861	Roe Lockwood
Sixth	1865	Roe Lockwood
Seventh	1870-1871	George Lockwood

For an exhaustive discussion of these various editions, you may wish to read Audubon Art Prints: A Collector's Guide To Every Edition by Bill Steiner, ISBN 1-57003-503-2.

This triptych, from the collection of C. Zura & B. Cirrinone, shows an uncolored proof of a 1^st Royal Octavo Edition print circa 1840, a 1^st Royal Octavo Edition circa 1841,
and a 2nd Edition circa 1856 of Plate 79, Yellow-throated Wood Warbler.
(Click image to see larger photograph.)

A brief biography of John James Audubon can be found here.

A complete listing of the 1^st Royal Octavo bird prints, by family and genus, is available here, along with Audubon's field notes.

A complete set of all 500 images from the 1^st Royal Octavo edition is available here.

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Bowen Editions

Royal Octavo Birds (1840 - 1871)

1st Royal Octavo Edition

2nd and Subsequent Editions

1^st Royal Octavo Edition

2^nd and Subsequent Editions