From the Pulitzer Prizewinning historian Richard Rhodes, the first major biography of John James Audubon in forty years, and the first to illuminate fully the private and family life of the master illustrator of the natural world. [Knopf]
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Booklist Donna Seaman
Full of passion and discovery, hardship and transcendence, Audubon's story is at once intimate and mythic, and Rhodes' fresh, comprehensive biography will capture the imagination of readers everywhere. [Aug 2004, p.1886]
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Outstanding
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Boston Globe John Gregory Brown
A superb biography that shares its subject's abiding interest in precise and complete representation.
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Outstanding
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Entertainment Weekly Wook Kim
Rhodes presents something more than a scrupulously researched portrait of a self-actualized genius: Through an understanding of the life and times of this flawed but likable character, we can trace the beginnings of our own complex national identity.
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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
Outstanding.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Rhodes succeeds in shedding light on how Audubon perfected his ability to capture in his depictions of birds so much life and emotion.
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Outstanding
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San Francisco Chronicle Jesse Berrett
Rhodes' sentences are, to coin a term, Mississippian, flowing with an unhurried and irresistible majesty toward their goal. Without reaching for obscure words or overly complex formulations, his prose conveys thorough mastery of the subject, limitless curiosity and an enormous range of knowledge.
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Outstanding
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The New York Times Book Review Jonathan Rosen
Rhodes...possesses tremendous technological and historical mastery, but it is his novelistic evocation, based on what feels a near complete identification with his subject, that gives his book its uplifting energy.
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Outstanding
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Washington Post Kenn Kaufman
Literally hundreds of quotes, short and long, bring to life the voice of that era. Rhodes has given us the most three-dimensional portrait yet of Audubon the man.
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Favorable
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The New Yorker
Rhodes occasionally lingers too long on his subject's publishing difficulties (a pet peeve of many authors), but he conveys both the singular glories of the early American wilderness -- sycamore tree crowded with nine thousand swallows -- and the solitary desperation of Audubon's labors.
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Favorable
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The Economist
Richard Rhodes's account is the more detailed of the two, and shows more prints. He sets Audubon in the political context of the day.
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times Avedis Hadjian
Rhodes' book might have benefited from only a passing reference to the strains on Audubon's family life caused by his prolonged absences from home -- on expeditions or in Britain -- and from less extensive quotations of letter exchanges with his wife. [10 Oct 2004, p.R6]
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Favorable
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Chicago Tribune Katrin Schultheiss
Rhodes clearly has not only enormous admiration but also a deep affection for Audubon. At times he seems almost reluctant to admit that Audubon ever behaved less than honorably. [17 Oct 2004, p.C1]
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Janet Maslin
Even when drawing dead subjects, Audubon infused his work with vigor and empathy, with a keen anthropomorphic vision of what these lives were like. His birds were wild. This book shouldn't be tame.
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