Note 340 — Chapter XXII · TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS

The work, as originally announced, was to appear in parts of 5 plates each, at 2 guineas a part, and in order to distribute the expense to purchasers it was expected to issue but 5 parts a year. The plates, to be engraved on copper, were of double elephant folio size, and printed on paper of the finest quality, all the birds and flowers to be life-size, and to be carefully colored by hand, after the originals; any subscriber was at liberty to take a part or the whole. It was stated in the prospectus of 1829, when 10 parts had been published: "There are 400 Drawings, and it is proposed that they shall comprise Three Volumes, each containing 133 Plates, to which an Index will be given at the end of each, to be bound up with the volume.... It would be advisable for the subscriber to procure a Portfolio, to keep the Numbers till a volume is completed." To avoid the expense entailed by copyright regulations in England, indices and all other letterpress were eventually omitted; the number of parts was extended to 87, or 435 plates, and the number of volumes to 4, a necessity imposed by the discovery of many new birds, even after the omission of the figures of the eggs, which Audubon had reserved for the close, and the undue crowding of many of his final plates. The "Prospectus" issued with the first volume of the text in 1831 contained a list of the first 100 plates, together with extracts of reviews by Cuvier and Swainson, and a list of subscribers to the number of 180. For further details, see Bibliography, No. 1, and Appendix III, No. 2.