Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America

by William Souder

In this Pulitzer Prize–finalist biography, the author of Mad at the World examines the little-known life of the man behind the well-known bird survey. John James Audubon is renowned for his masterpiece of natural history and art, The Birds of America, the first nearly comprehensive survey of the continent’s birdlife. And yet few people understand, and many assume incorrectly, what sort of man he was. How did the illegitimate son of a French sea captain living in Haiti, who lied both about his parentage and his training, rise to become one of the greatest natural historians ever and the greatest name in ornithology? In Under a Wild Sky this Pulitzer Prize finalist, William Souder reveals that Audubon did not only compose the most famous depictions of birds the world has ever seen, but he also composed a brilliant mythology of self. In this dazzling work of biography, Souder charts the life of a driven man who, despite all odds, became the historical figure we know today.“A meticulous biography and a fascinating portrait of a young nation.”—San Francisco Chronicle “As richly endowed and densely packed as the forests of Audubon’s day.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune “Deftly weaves together the story of the self-taught artist and naturalist…with the development of scientific inquiry in the early years of the republic and the lives of ordinary Americans as the new nation spilled westward over the mountains from the Eastern seaboard.”—Los Angeles Times

Genres: Biography, History, Birds, Nonfiction, Nature, Art, Natural History

394 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 16, 2004

About the author

William Souder’s books include biographies of John Steinbeck, Rachel Carson (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year) and John James Audubon (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize). He lives in Grant, Minnesota.

Reviews

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-documented biography of John James Audubon, by William Souder, Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America, presents the complicated self-taught artist as a brilliant but flawed genius. The most surprising flaw is that, in spite of the goals of his name sake society, he was never, and never pretended to be, a conservationist. Audubon did not just shoot birds and animals for study or artistic modeling, but killed as an obsessive hobby. He was quite skilled at it and used his 2-barrelled shot gun to down more than a hundred birds a day when on a hunt. Still, it can be said that his life's work, The Birds of America, folios executed on the largest size paper available at the time,"double elephant", are stunning in their beautiful natural, rendering, all portrayed life sized, even if the flamingo and other large birds had to appear head lowered in order to fit the 27 by 40 inch paper. I had my first glimpse of a complete folio in 1979 at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, where it was the focus of its own tower room. The Huntington acquired their engraved set in 1917 for $3,500. Today, it would be worth many, many times that. Souder's book is not a fun read, plodding slowly through Audubon's years of self-doubt, poverty, and social conflict but an enlightening look at the man and his times.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess I started with a preconception based on the Audubon name being used for a philanthropic environmental conservation organization. I expected him to be ahead of his time in this way. He was not. In fact his obsession with birds bled into cruelty towards them. I understand that he needed to kill birds in order to study and paint them. I understand that it was a different time and that birds were more plentiful than they are now. But his interest in hunting went beyond scientific curiosity. In addition, he was not exactly a stand-up guy. He was a wandering, absent, unstable family man and an insecure yet boastful liar. No doubt he made a huge contribution to science. His technique of painting birds at life size and his way of representing his subjects within their habitats were original. But many of his conclusions about animal behavior turned out to be false.

I would have appreciated it if more images of his work had been included in the book. About a third of the book was not even about Audubon but about his competitors.

At a time in history when many things we take for granted today were next to impossible (like having to hand paint engravings for reproduction rather than run them off on a copier), Audubon did manage to accomplish a lot. He traveled extensively and often. It's hard to imagine even wanting to travel the distances he did when most of it was by boat, on foot, or on horseback.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well executed, concise biography about a man almost too big, too boundless to be portrayed to just 300 pages. Audubon was larger than life and his “The Birds of America” with its accompanying text is the most monumental achievement in American art/natural history. Almost 20 years in the making, the production of the over-sized 435 hand-colored engravings took 12 years to complete in England, while the research and drawings and knowledge of this country’s birdlife took even longer to accumulate for the rough-hewn naturalist. It was all consuming.

Often broke, even penniless, sleeping where ever he could, the young Audubon logged mile after mile in the back country away from his family, living off the land, finding birds, watching birds, studying birds. sketching birds, even eating birds. They were the source of his sustenance, his inspiration, his complete adulation. They nourished him while he annotated their existence.

Souder also does a good job of separating the fact from the fiction of Audubon’s life, his true derring-do from his exaggerated exploits. (No, even though he claimed it was true, he never hunted with Daniel Boone in Kentucky, Boone was 51 years older than Audubon.)

However, the farouche Audubon was truly an original, a remarkable artist and salesman, a genius at marketing himself through tall tales. Audubon was also unstoppable. Ignoring his critics, surviving the hardships, through the swamps, mud, cold, raging muddy rivers, he steadfastly pushed forward with his “life’s work,” Yet, behind all that drive and bravado, Souder shows us the vulnerable side of Audubon that was often depressed, lonely and anxious. The fear of being a failure haunted him. But, a failure he was not.

I fine biography.

[Kerry Dooley Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

I debated for a day whether to buy this book or the biography of Audubon that another author also published in 2004. I made the right choice. I'm sure the Richard Rhodes book also is quite fine, but Souder's was a pleasure to read. It was what's we've long called a page turner, although I read it on Kindle. So do we now say a book is a "screen tapper"?

Souder's biography appears to have been researched thoroughly, but it reads as easily as fiction.
He strikes the right balance between seeming credible and drowning the reader in picayune details. Highly recommend this book.

Souder shows us how hard Audubon worked to get details about the anatomy of birds exactly right. We learn about his careful taxidermy and the wire grids he used to stage his specimens for life-size portraits. But Souder also explains Audubon's showman side. I won't spoil the surprises, but Souder details instances where Audubon displayed what he called a "Kentuckian's knack for tall tales."

We learn of Audubon's failings and strengths. And we learn about the times in which he lived. Souder's sentences are graceful. His writing often flows in a way that I envy. "The passenger pigeon was a force of nature that even the imaginative Audubon was unable to exaggerate," Souder wrote.

Souder's description of the passenger pigeons was among the many highlights of this book for me. Souder puts us in the moment as a flock of passenger pigeons descends "with a roar of wings that was deafening." This is another instance where Souder tells us much about the times in which Audubon lived while keeping the story moving.

[Eugenea Pollock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many know his name (Audubon clubs, societies, prints, etc.), but few know much about his life (1785-1851) except that he liked to draw birds. This book seeks to remedy that, and it does so admirably. In addition to being a consummate ornithologist and artist (largely self-taught), he was also, at various times, a businessman of sorts, an adventurous frontiersman, an excellent marksman, an affectionate though often absent husband and father, a teller of tall tales, a visionary, and what might be called today an obsessive-compulsive. My husband and I read this book aloud and discussed it in some detail, both giving it a rating of “5” and deeming it one of our best books of 2021.

[Skjam! · Rating 4 out of 5]

When John James Audubon arrived in Philadelphia in 1824, he carried with him a portfolio of beautiful bird paintings he hoped to turn into a book, and a backstory of childhood in Louisiana, being the son of a French admiral, and studying painting under one of the great artists of the previous era. The paintings were very well done, especially since Audubon insisted on always making them life-sized. But much of his supposed history was simply not true. In fact, John James Audubon wasn’t even his birth name!

Possibly worse, Audubon was seen as stepping on the legacy of Alexander Wilson, America’s greatest ornithologist to that point. Wilson’s life work, American Ornithology, had been posthumously completed by his friends, including one George Ord, a member of Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Audubon reportedly was dismissive of Wilson’s accuracy and completeness, and claimed to have met the older man some years before, given him pointers, and then not given credit in the published version.

Ord was angered by this, and suspicious of Audubon’s wild tales of his past, blackballed the painter from Academy membership, as well as convincing the city’s publishers not to print Audubon’s work. Rejected, Audubon knew he would have to find another way.

That setback begins this biography of the famed painter and ornithologist. It then tracks back to his origins as they are now understood. The name change and fib about where he was born was meant to conceal that Audubon had been born out of wedlock in what is now Haiti. Some of the rest was to boost his social status, and the remainder was just the tall tales frontiersmen liked to tell.

This volume also serves as a biography for Alexander Wilson, and how the British immigrant weaver, poet and schoolteacher came to be one of the top experts on American birds. It’s interesting to compare and contrast his life to Audubon’s.

After things got dicey on Haiti for the French, Audubon’s father (who was merely a commander) took him to France to live with his family. When young Jean came of age, France was at war, and to avoid having the boy drafted, his father sent “John James” to America to manage some property there.

Audubon loved the great outdoors, especially the birds, and spent most of his time out there shooting birds and drawing pictures of them. He had his ups and downs, moving from place to place for business with mixed results, though his rambling ways seemed not to be the major reason for poor income. Indeed, he was doing quite well for a few years before the Panic of 1819 left Audubon and his family penniless.

Mrs. Audubon took on various jobs, mostly teaching, and their family resided with friends while Audubon buckled down to the project of creating as many bird illustrations as possible for the project he was sure would make their fortune. Once he felt ready, Audubon headed northeast to Philadelphia, with the results we have already seen.

Audubon scrimped and saved for a ticket to Britain, where he thought he might have better luck. As indeed he did. First in Scotland, then in England, Audubon’s bird paintings were a sensation. Alexander Wilson was a non-entity there, and Audubon’s outlandish ways and stories so denigrated in Pennsylvania were adored by the Brits.

The Birds of America found a printer there, as did the companion volume Ornithological Biography which not only described the birds depicted in Audubon’s pictures, but had sidebars on the author’s personal life. Alas, these sidebars are often at least partially fictional.

Audubon began having larger mood swings while residing in Britain, perhaps foreshadowing the mental illness he would have in his twilight years. (Constant exposure to arsenic, which was used to preserve bird specimens, probably didn’t help.) Eventually, The Birds of America was finished, though only a few hundred complete sets were ever published, and Audubon went on to other projects.

After John James Audubon died, his widow Lucy wrote a sanitized biography of him, which most children’s biographies of the man have worked from. Between that and his own habit of prevarication, it can be difficult to sort out what of his life is true.

The prose style of this biography is decent, and does not spend too much time on the drier side of history. I was a bit disappointed that there is only a small selection of black and white illustrations in the center, as the whole book is about the beautiful color paintings Audubon did. There are endnotes (good reading as the author sifts through the sources for reliability), a bibliography, and a small index.

Sensitive readers should be aware that there’s a lot of descriptions of hunting (Audubon was after all an avid hunter) and that Audubon, like many people who lived in Kentucky and points south during this time period, owned or rented slaves. (No quotes are cited about his personal feelings on the subject of slavery.)

This book would be best appreciated by bird lovers from senior high school level on up who want to know more about America’s early ornithologists.

While you’re here, if you like birds and want to support them, please consider donating to the Audubon Society, named after the fellow we’ve just been discussing. http://mn.audubon.org/support (Note: I am not a member of the Audubon Society and was not asked to provide this endorsement.)

[timv · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is supposed to be a biography of Audubon and is split into 2 parts. The first part is about Alexander Wilson and Audubon. Wilson created a book on American ornithology before Audubon. I thought the part about Wilson was not central to the story of Audubon and was a distraction. Although the book is very detailed and evidently sourced from letters, I found it uninteresting. I think the story would’ve benefited from the telling of how and why Audubon’s images became so famous. Instead, the author ends the book at the last decade of Audubon’s life. All in all, a disappointing read.

The book would have also benefited from having some of Audubons famous images. This book pales in comparison to the story told about another American image maker, Edward S. Curtis, in the book, "The Shadow Catcher“.

[Cynthia Barnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This intimate biography of John James Audubon is also a gorgeously detailed narrative of nature in nineteenth century America, with its lush forests, rivers and wildlife, including “eclipses” of passenger pigeons and “roiling, deep green oceans” of Carolina parakeets. Bill Souder is a dogged biographer who unravels Audubon’s self-woven mythology and covers all sides of the story, which included much killing as Audubon worked obsessively to paint his life-sized portraits of America’s birds. Under a Wild Sky is a page-turning narrative of a rather wild man; Souder deftly portrays Audubon’s complexities as a naturalist, husband, father, struggling businessman, truth-stretcher, and most of all, an artist wracked by doubt. It is also an unforgettable submersion into life and nature in the nineteenth century, as Souder reminds us, “a lost, far-richer world.”

[Christine Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully Readable Book about the Icon of Ornithology

As a bird watcher, I wanted to know more about this pivotal figure. William Souder’s work fulfilled this and more. The work is captivating and informative. His description of the end of Audubon’s life made me teary. A great book. I now have to visit places he mentioned and see a display of Audubon’s Birds of America in its proper size.

[Lauren Milewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a slow read for me, but I enjoyed it and learned a lot about Audubon and naturalism in the early 19th century. I just find that I prefer to read most biographies a chapter or so at time while also reading fiction - otherwise, they feel too dense for me to retain the information.

Souder’s book is extremely well-researched using primarily letters and journals, along with some secondary sources. I knew very little about Audubon before reading this, and Souder does an incredible job of bringing him and his family and world to life. I’m a birdwatcher and one of my fondest book memories was seeing an original copy of Birds of America in the University of Michigan rare books library on a college tour, so admittedly I am the target audience for this work, but I think anyone interested in American natural history would find value in it.

My primary feeling at the end of the book is overwhelming sadness for how much natural beauty and how many wild creatures and places we have lost over the past few centuries. It was incredible to read the descriptions of the wilderness Audubon loved and spent his life chronicling, and heartbreaking to hear some early stories of its destruction. It’s a stark reminder to care for the environment we have left while we still can.

[Janet Eshenroder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. Souter has done an excellent job describing the details in Audubon’s life so you are able to imagine and experience all the artist’s excursions into the wilderness to find new species of birds.
Detailed accounts show not only his own growth as a painter and naturalist (some things he got right, some wrong) but, in the struggles to become recognized, the author also showed the competition to become established as an expert was fierce and at times hostile.
Audubon’s legacy was never established until years after his completion of his work. How his wife stayed so loyal to his cause, through all the financial hardships, is a wonder.
While this story shows an artist’s determination to complete his great project, the book also presented the artist’s personal claims and stories which could not be verified or were outright disproved.
I loved the writing. I enjoyed the book and I appreciated Audubon’s passion to paint what no other artist or naturalist had ever attempted. I appreciated his struggle and his artwork. I did not come away admiring the man himself.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating biography of a well known artist with whose work I am well acquainted but whose life story completely eluded me until now. I cannot believe how like a novel his life story played out. This book is extremely readable and opens up a part of the aMercian experience that I had never before considered. Audubon had many faces: Bon vivant, frontiersman, naturalist, artist, businessman, scalawag, loving father, run away husband, world traveler to name a few. The author unobtrusively includes many footnotes quoting from Audubon's journals and allowing this unusual man his own voice. The history of the early republic comes alive, and life along the Ohio during the early eighteen hundreds for both men and women is vividly depicted. A winner if you have any interest in art, Audubon, birds, or how the west was won.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange that in many ways in the beginning of this book I felt that I was embarking not on the life of John James Audubon, but on a tome of the entire history of ornithology - which was unexpected, if not enlightening. No wonder the book was over ten hours long. Nevertheless, admittedly for this reader at least, it did help to have that historical context when the main character entered the scene.

Audobon's unconventional life and singular purpose not surprisingly made him a poor businessman and like countless artists before and since, his personal life suffered, and fame and fortune eluded him. The story is interesting, but ultimately, a sad one.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook. Wasn't expecting the detail on the killing for sport. The study and painting and the need for specimens is understandable but the additional detail on hunting expeditions and stories that Audobon told were uncomfortable and felt unnecessary. Maybe because audio (and I wasn't always full attention), the narrative also seemed to be mostly sequential but then awkwardly detailed about a side character which often involved going back in time. The additional characters were definitely interesting and added to the story, but it didn't feel integrated to me.

[Patti · Rating 3 out of 5]

John James Audubon was certainly a genius in his fixation on birds/wildlife. He also had tremendous talents in seeking out and meticulously picturing the birds he discovered despite many hardships, personal dangers, and intrepid exploration. However, this book also details his personal foibles: ego, inattention to his family for long periods of time, dishonesty in relating his experiences and personal history. A very complex character.
I'm not sure after reading this book that I still understand the man. His motivations are hard to reconcile. I feel especially sad for his long-suffering but very loyal wife and can't imagine how this story might have been told differently from her point of view.
I had only heard/read of the accolades, but I now feel that the man in full is not worthy of some of the overwhelming praise and recognition. After all, as Souder points out at various points, he was definitely a flawed and troubled human. I can admire his dedication but also regret his deception and self-absorption.

[Stephen Cranney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating biography of a little understood and under appreciated man

Audubon came to life in this well researched and written biography. Without formal education and training it amazes me what he accomplished against seemingly insurmountable lifelong challenges. Thanks for bringing his life to the written word. You cannot help but love what Audubon left the world as a legacy. Its sad that he and his family didn't enjoy that legacy in their lifetime.

[David Whited · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great read. Well written, colorful, full of detail. Illustrates the great difficulties and sacrifices that Audibon suffered throughout his life in pursuit of his life goal of identifying all the birds in the the newly settled America.

Committed a little too many chapters on Alexander Wilson, another popular ornithologist at the time.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Souder does a good and very readable job tying together the disparate threads of Audubon's story into a coherent narrative. I would have liked a deeper analysis of his very curious psychology, including his propensity for telling tall tales and the larger cultural and intellectual context in which he appeared and made his name.

[Dewayne Stark · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Audubon had a camera he would not have need to shoot so many birds. I fished a dead Grebe out of the water yesterday had been hooked by a fisherman. Taking bird pictures is great fun. While reading this book I was constantly switching to Google the birds mentioned in it.

[BCScanlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naturalist, explorer, teller of tall tales. Fascinating for its exploration of his relationships to his wife and family, his business associates, and scientific societies.

[robert e. rayunas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bird of a book!

The story of a determined man about something we today should enjoy. All birders should take the time to read!

[Rebecca Conard · Rating 5 out of 5]

John James Audubon is a remarkably interesting historical figure, and one learns as much about the times as about the man and his family.

[Gary Dorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. The first part was slow reading with more about Wilson than Audubon understandably as they were contemporaries and competitors . Overall I enjoyed it very much.

[Sue · Rating 1 out of 5]

No patience for the literary shenanigans.

[Mike Horne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating story. I read this in preparation for a visit to the Houston Natural Science Museum--Audobon exhibit.

[Caren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Learned a lot.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written. Almost too honest. It’s hard to “meet” your heroes.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is our good fortune that the members of today's eponymous society of bird lovers do not follow the "birding" methods of John James Audubon.

During his life he sent great numbers of our feathered friends to an early end. For, while most early Americans hunted to feed themselves, Audubon went well beyond hunting for survival and study, and felled birds in great numbers to skin, dissect, stuff and paint them, or mail them off to curious friends.
Sometimes, by his own admission in his voluminous notes, he shot them just for the hell of it. On one occasion he bemoaned the fact that his gun jammed after killing only two pelicans, when he intended to kill a lot more.
But he was a man of his times, and it was common for farmers to blast away at flocks of Carolina Parakeet until no more were in sight. The Passenger Pigeon was similarly devalued and massacred, with the result that those two lovely species were soon extinct.

To his credit, Audubon found the practice of wholesale buffalo slaughter repulsive and refused to take part.

Aside from the above, the book is a fascinating biopic of the man and his times, and of the tribulations he and his wife endured in bringing to fruition his beautiful master work "The Birds of America."
It also lays bare the historic roots of the atavistic behavior still witnessed in many Americans... hunting for 'fun.'

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really engaging exploration of the protracted, stumbling process it took Audubon to amass his portfolio and see "The Birds of America" through its publication. The best parts are about the birds - what the world looked like to Audubon. The descriptions of the birds and lush landscape of Haiti that Audubon knew as a child are mind-boggling, knowing how deforested that country is today. Souder takes the time to explain the significance of the loss of the passenger pigeon - a bird that flew in flocks so massive that one once took three days to pass over Audubon in his travels. Souder puts Audubon's masterpiece into perspective not just as a work of American art but as a document of what the country looked like in the early 19th century.

"Under a Wild Sky" is a nice companion to the 2015 HistoryMiami exhibit showing every single plate from "The Birds of America" in order, all at once: http://apne.ws/1DOSOwN.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautiful written biography of John James Audubon is a must-read for any bird lover or anyone interested in the historical development of the study of natural history. The most remarkable and poignant aspect of Audubon was captured in this sentence: “And at a time when he was poor and in a precarious state of mind, Audubon’s real strength was his allegiance to his personal vision.”

But perhaps the most eloquent and emotionally soaring sentence in this book so full of eloquence, was written by Audubon himself (probably with the help of his ghostwriter, William MacGillivray): “How fervently… have I blessed the Being who formed the Wood Thrush, and placed it in those solitary forests, as if to console me amidst my privations, to cheer my depressed mind, and to make me feel, as I did, that never ought man to despair, whatever may be his situation, as he can never be certain that aid and deliverance are not at hand.”