Regarding Ella’s recent post on John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley, I vaguely remember reading this book. Charley was Steinbeck’s old dog that according to text on the dust cover was afflicted with a prostrate problem. Charley was Steinbeck’s motor-home travel companion. My recollection of it is that it was an interesting fun reading, but today in my memory its importance ranks far below three other far more memorial travel accounts. These are the John James Audubon “1826 Journal,” Francis Parkman’s “Oregon Trail,” and Rudard Kipling's “American Notes.”
I also have a copy of Francis Parkman’s journals, “The Journals of Francis Parkman,” two volumes, Edited by Mason Wade and published by Harper Brothers in 1947. This is an interesting publication because it contains not only Parkman’s original day by day field accounts of his 1845 trek through the west, but also his accounts of his many other travels including his early 1840s grand tour of Europe and his field trips through eastern Canada gathering material for his major work on the 18th century English/French strugge for control of North America.
I will in the future post further details on the Parkman and Kipling titles. For now the following is copied from my earlier post on the now archived pre 2007 History and Biography board about the John James Audubon “1826 Journal”
Harold Arnold
June 26, 2000 - 01:08 pm
Here is a comment on a post regency/pre Victorian travel journal that I found to double as a social history of the time. The book that I am referring to is “The 1826 Journal of John James Audubon” edited by Alice Ford, University of Oklahoma Press, 1966 (Library of Congress #66-22713). This book describes the 1826 trip of the author from his home in Kentucky to the United Kingdom to publish his life work, ”The Birds of North America.” Apparently in the early 19th Century, the publishing expertise in the United States was unable to print the color reproductions required. (Added April 24, 2009) This is not entirely true. I now know Audubon knew that a rival ornithologist was favored in Philadelphia. Apparently he was not sure of a favorable reception there, and choose to go to England to avoid an embarrassing conflict.)
I was first attracted to this book because of the description of the riverboat trip from Kentucky to New Orleans where Audubon booked passage on a cotton cargo sailing ship, the Delos. There are interesting accounts and sketches of the voyage. It took two months, half of which was spent in the doldrums in the Gulf where the sighting of another vessel aroused concern lest it turn out to be a pirate. Once in the Atlantic the voyage went faster but Audubon showed boredom leading to several afternoon bouts with a bottle of Porter the effect of which left several journal entries illegible to his 20th century editor.
In Liverpool Audubon introduced himself through letters of introduction to several “middle class” families, meaning rich merchant intellectual types. These were principally the Roscoe and Rathbone families. It is amazing how easily and how quickly he was accepted into their circle. The friendship of his own in-laws, the Bakewells, was much more difficult to establish (This included his wife’s sister’s husband who was a Liverpool merchant). A showing of his bird pictures at the Liverpool establishment of the prestigious Royal Society was quickly arranged. A similar showing followed in Manchester while contact was being established with publishing experts in Edinburgh.
There is a wonderful account of the long stage trip between Liverpool and Edinburgh. Ten years later Audubon could have went by train. Here Audubon continued his easy association with the intellectual, professional and business elite. This contact led to meetings with a young Lord Stanley (the pre Stanley Cup, Stanleys) and Sir Walter Scott. It also led later to Audubon's election as a member of the Royal Society. The publication of his bird pictures began. This apparently involved the etching of copper plates that were used to make two-tone prints (Black and white or maybe sepia and white). The prints were hand colored with transparent light oils and sold by subscription at a price only the very rich could afford.
One negative fact to emerge from this reading that came as a surprise to me, was that John James Audubon was no ecologist. His method of painting birds and animals was to shoot the creature dead and by wires and supports pose the body in a natural and characteristic position for sketching and painting. While in Edinburgh he actually executed a street cat to make one of his better-known non-bird art works. Though John James Audubon is not recognized to-day as a great artist, he is recognized as a great ornithologist and his works in this field to-day remain significant. To me the significance of this book lies in neither ornithology nor art, it lies in its description of the society in which the actors, John James Audubon, the Rathbone family, the Roscoes, Bakewells, and many others played their parts.
