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7 volumes. 500 hand-colored lithograph plates. (Royal 8vo) 256x169mm (10¼x6½"), rebound in three-quarter red calf and marbled boards, spines lettered and decorated in gilt, edges marbled; top edge gilt. Lists of subscribers at rear in all volumes. Index present in volume 7. First octavo edition, bound from the original parts.

A superb set of the first octavo edition of Audubon's ornithological masterpiece and perhaps the most important American color-plate book of the 19th century. The plates, accompanied for the first time in this edition by the text, were reduced and modified from the original Havell engravings for the double-elephant folio. The plates were reduced by camera lucida and some of the backgrounds entirely changed or greatly modified. To the original plate count included in the double-elephant folio edition, the octavo edition adds 65 new images for a total of 500 plates, making it "the most extensive color plate book produced in America up to that time" (Reese). Included for the first time are seven new species and seventeen others, previously described in the Ornithological Biography but not illustrated, are also shown for the first time. The original compositions were altered so that only one species is depicted per plate. The text itself is a revision of the Ornithological Biography, rearranged according to Audubon's "A Synopsis of the Birds of North America" (1839). Audubon writes in his introduction to this edition that it is his wish that a work similar to his large work should be published 'at such a price, as would enable every student or lover of nature to place it in his library'. The octavo Birds of America was originally issued in 100 parts, each containing five plates. Bennett p.5; Nissen IVB 51; Reese 34; Sabin 2364; McGill/Wood p.208; Ayer/Zimmer p.22.