Good morning to everyone!
I was recently given as a gift a vintage bird book from America. The title is Birds of America, the editor is Gilbert T. Pearson, and the book contains color plates by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The texts are also interesting as some of them were written by John Burroughs. The book was printed in 1936 by Garden City Publishing, but the original copyright is from 1917. The book lost the dust cover, and has a brown cover with geese in flight engraved on the front.
Well, now I have some questions about this book, and what exactly is from when. I have read some of the text and looked at the pictures, and noticed that most if not all of the text is from 1917 and was not updated (Great Depression?). For example the Heath Hen is listed as safe in Martha's Vineyard, but it actually got extinct on 1932. Yet what impresses me is that some of the pictures look quite modern to be 1917 pictures (but then again I am not an historian of photography so...)... So well, my question for who knows the book (or has seen both the edition I have and the original 1917 one) is: what was exactly changed from the original book and the later edition? Are the pics really from 1917 (if so, quite impressed)?
Well, thank you in advance,
Gian Andrea
I was recently given as a gift a vintage bird book from America. The title is Birds of America, the editor is Gilbert T. Pearson, and the book contains color plates by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. The texts are also interesting as some of them were written by John Burroughs. The book was printed in 1936 by Garden City Publishing, but the original copyright is from 1917. The book lost the dust cover, and has a brown cover with geese in flight engraved on the front.
Well, now I have some questions about this book, and what exactly is from when. I have read some of the text and looked at the pictures, and noticed that most if not all of the text is from 1917 and was not updated (Great Depression?). For example the Heath Hen is listed as safe in Martha's Vineyard, but it actually got extinct on 1932. Yet what impresses me is that some of the pictures look quite modern to be 1917 pictures (but then again I am not an historian of photography so...)... So well, my question for who knows the book (or has seen both the edition I have and the original 1917 one) is: what was exactly changed from the original book and the later edition? Are the pics really from 1917 (if so, quite impressed)?
Well, thank you in advance,
Gian Andrea