Fuglene. Audubons "Birds of America"

Resumé

NB: Artiklen er på dansk, kun resuméet er på engelsk. The Royal Library owns one of the most exceptional works in book history, an original edition of John James Audubon Birds of America. This edition, in a format called “double elephant folio” was published from 1827 to 1838. On basis of existing literature, this article briefly describes the work’s genesis, including Audubon’s technique, printing, the letterpress, conservation history as well as the pricing of the book when it was published. The work was originally acquired for The Classen’s Library (Det Classenske Bibliotek), a private research library, which, although considerably smaller than the Royal Library and the University Library, joined the library cooperation of the 1800’s on an equal standing with the other two libraries. The Classen’s Library and the library’s founder, industrialist JF Classen are described briefly in this article. Due to two library mergers the Birds of America is now owned by the Royal Library. The acquisition of the Danish set by the Classen’s Library is examined by analyzing previously unpublished letters and is described for the first time, although not comprehensively, in this article. The provenance of this work, as described by Waldemar Fries in 1973, is reexamined in this article. Using newly discovered archival material and a review of available literature, this article concludes that the Danish set was assembled in 1857/58 from loose sheets, and was most likely created simultaneously with three other sets, two of which are believed to be the Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, USA and Library of Parliament, Ottawa, Canada sets.