"The first accurate transcription of John James Audubon's 1843 journals, which includes recently discovered and previously unpublished journal entries detailing his last expedition along the upper Missouri River"--Provided by publisher.

John James Audubon's journal of 1826 details the months leading up to his creation of The Birds of America, one of the greatest works of natural history and art of the nineteenth century. The first accurate transcription of Audubon's 1826 journal, this edition corrects many of the errors, both intentional and unintentional, found in previous editions. Such errors have obscured the figure of Audubon as a man struggling to realize his professional and artistic dreams. John James Audubon (1785-1851) is one of America's premier wildlife artists. His collection of 435 life-sized prints, The Birds of America, is often considered the greatest picture book ever produced. Daniel Patterson is a professor of English at Central Michigan University. He is the editor of The Missouri River Journals of John James Audubon (Nebraska, 2016) and Early American Nature Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Patricio J. Serrano is the official translator of the English/Spanish Language at Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas-ESPE, in Sangolqui, Ecuador. John R. Knott is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Michigan and the author and editor of numerous works, including Imagining the Forest: Narratives of Michigan and the Upper Midwest.

This volume provides the most comprehensive selection of Audubon's writings ever published, along with a portfolio of his drawings.

Daniel Patterson and Eric Russell present a groundbreaking case for considering John James Audubon’s and John Bachman’s quadruped essays as worthy of literary analysis and redefine the role of Bachman, the perpetually overlooked coauthor of the essays. After completing The Birds of America (1826–38), Audubon began developing his work on the mammals. The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America volumes show an antebellum view of nature as fundamentally dynamic and simultaneously grotesque and awe-inspiring. The quadruped essays are rich with good stories about these mammals and the humans who observe, pursue, and admire them. For help with the science and the essays, Audubon enlisted the Reverend John Bachman of Charleston, South Carolina. While he has been acknowledged as coauthor of the essays, Bachman has received little attention as an American nature writer. While almost all works that describe the history of American nature writing include Audubon, Bachman shows up only in a subordinate clause or two. Tenacious of Life strives to restore Bachman’s status as an important American nature writer. Patterson and Russell analyze the coauthorial dance between the voices of Audubon, an experienced naturalist telling adventurous hunting stories tinged often by sentiment, romanticism, and bombast, and of Bachman, the courteous gentleman naturalist, scientific detective, moralist, sometimes cruel experimenter, and humorist. Drawing on all the primary and secondary evidence, Patterson and Russell tell the story of the coauthors’ fascinating, conflicted relationship. This collection offers windows onto the early United States and much forgotten lore, often in the form of travel writing, natural history, and unique anecdotes, all told in the compelling voices of Antebellum America’s two leading naturalists.