The Mocking Bird

May – 21 July 1826

Across the ocean with a portfolio of drawings: Liverpool

Audubon left the United States in May 1826 and arrived in Liverpool on 21 July, going straight with a letter of introduction to the wealthy Richard Rathbone and getting to know his whole family. The exhibition of his work at the Royal Institution lasted a month, and after William Roscoe's urging the free first week gave way to paid admission: Audubon earned £100 and sold several oil copies of his drawings.

November 1826

An agreement with Lizars to publish in Edinburgh

In Edinburgh friends introduced Audubon to the engraver William Lizars, who spent several days looking at the watercolours and decided to publish them after seeing the portrait of the peregrine falcon. They reached an agreement in November 1826, but in several months only ten images were ready, and their quality did not satisfy Audubon.

spring 1827

London: the engraver Robert Havell Jr.

In the spring of 1827 in London Audubon learned of a strike at Lizars's workshop and began looking for a new engraver: this is how he met Robert Havell Sr. and his son Robert Havell Jr. With the help of the younger Havell four volumes of “The Birds of America” were produced.

January 1827

Edinburgh: a meeting with Walter Scott

In January 1827, after Audubon's watercolour exhibition opened at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the meeting with Walter Scott that he had dreamed of took place, although the writer had just been declared bankrupt and had lost his wife. Scott wrote that he wished he had gone to see the drawings, but had heard so much about them that he resolved not to see them; Audubon showed him his paintings during a second visit.

February 1828

Elected to the Linnean Society of London

In February 1828 Audubon was elected to the Linnean Society in London and wrote several articles for scientific journals; because of his poor English the articles raised a mass of questions whose answers took up much of his time. In May a London journal published William Swainson's review of the first numbers of “The Birds of America”.

August 1828

Paris: subscribers, Cuvier and Redouté

After his family declined his invitation to join him in London, Audubon went to the continent in August 1828 with Swainson and his wife; while Swainson did research at the Paris Jardin des Plantes, Audubon looked for subscribers. In France he met Baron Georges Cuvier and the master of botanical illustration Pierre-Joseph Redouté, with whom he exchanged several works, and he avoided Nantes for fear that the circumstances of his birth would come out.