(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)<br><br>This unprecedented anthology of John James Audubon&#8217;s lively and colorful writings about the American wilderness reintroduces the great artist and ornithologist as an exceptional American writer, a predecessor to Thoreau, Emerson, and Melville.<br><br>Audubon&#8217;s award-winning biographer, Richard Rhodes, has gathered excerpts from his journals, letters, and published works, and has organized them to appeal to general readers. Rhodes&#8217;s unobtrusive commentary frames a wide range of selections, including Audubon&#8217;s vivid &#8220;bird biographies,&#8221; correspondence with his devoted wife, Lucy, journal accounts of dramatic river journeys and hunting trips with the Shawnee and Osage Indians, and a generous sampling of brief narrative episodes that have long been out of print&#8212;engaging stories of pioneer life such as &quot;The Great Pine Swamp,&quot; &#8220;The Earthquake,&#8221; and &#8220;Kentucky Barbecue on the Fourth of July.&#8221; Full-color reproductions of sixteen of Audubon&#8217;s stunning watercolor illustrations accompany the text.<br><br><i>The Audubon Reader </i>allows us to experience Audubon&#8217;s distinctive voice directly and provides a window into his electrifying encounter with early America: with its wildlife and birds, its people, and its primordial wilderness.