AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY; OR, THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. Plates Engraved and Colored from Original Drawings Taken from Nature. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1871. Atlas folio 14 1/2" x 17 1/2". Three quarter leather and marbled paper boards, gilt page edges; bookplate of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney on front endpaper Bonaparte volume. Commonly known as the "Philadelphia Edition", these Atlases were printed in 1871, to accompany three octavo volumes of text with Wilson's detailed anatomical descriptions of each bird (not included). Originally published in 9 volumes between 1808-1815, Wilson's American Ornithology saw several editions published throughout the 19th Century, but not until this two volume 1871 set were the engravings published in folio size. Volume 1 contains 76 large hand-colored folio engravings made from original copper plates, engraved by Alexander Lawson, Murray, Warnicke, and Tanner after Wilson's drawings, and colored by Alexander Rider.  The Bonaparte volume contains 27 plates also engraved by Lawson after drawings by Titian R. Peale, Rider, as well as John James Audubon, who drew the Great Crow Blackbird on Plate 4.

PROVENANCE: By descent in the historic Pinckney family of Runnymede Plantation, South Carolina.

All plates present, scuffing to boards, slight foxing to some plates; each complete with no tears.