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Daniel Patterson and Eric Russell present a groundbreaking case for
considering John James Audubon's and John Bachman's quadruped
essays as worthy of literary analysis and redefine the role of
Bachman, the perpetually overlooked coauthor of the essays. After
completing The Birds of America (1826-38), Audubon began developing
his work on the mammals. The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America
volumes show an antebellum view of nature as fundamentally dynamic
and simultaneously grotesque and awe-inspiring. The quadruped
essays are rich with good stories about these mammals and the
humans who observe, pursue, and admire them. For help with the
science and the essays, Audubon enlisted the Reverend John Bachman
of Charleston, South Carolina. While he has been acknowledged as
coauthor of the essays, Bachman has received little attention as an
American nature writer. While almost all works that describe the
history of American nature writing include Audubon, Bachman shows
up only in a subordinate clause or two. Tenacious of Life strives
to restore Bachman's status as an important American nature writer.
Patterson and Russell analyze the coauthorial dance between the
voices of Audubon, an experienced naturalist telling adventurous
hunting stories tinged often by sentiment, romanticism, and
bombast, and of Bachman, the courteous gentleman naturalist,
scientific detective, moralist, sometimes cruel experimenter, and
humorist. Drawing on all the primary and secondary evidence,
Patterson and Russell tell the story of the coauthors' fascinating,
conflicted relationship. This collection offers windows onto the
early United States and much forgotten lore, often in the form of
travel writing, natural history, and unique anecdotes, all told in
the compelling voices of Antebellum America's two leading
naturalists.
John Bachman (1790 - 1874) was an internationally renowned
naturalist and a prominent Lutheran minister. This is the first
collection of his writings, containing selections from his three
major books, his letters, and his articles on plants and animals,
education, religion, agriculture, and the human species. Bachman
was the leading authority on North American mammals. He was
responsible for the descriptions of the 147 mammal species included
in Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, a massive work produced
in collaboration with John James Audubon. Bachman relied entirely
on scientific evidence in his work and was exceptional among his
fellow naturalists for studying the whole of natural history.
Bachman also relied on scientific evidence in his Doctrine of the
Unity of the Human Race. He showed that human beings constitute a
single species that developed as varieties equivalent to the
varieties of domesticated animals. In this work, perhaps his most
significant accomplishment, Bachman stood nearly alone in
challenging the polygenetic views of Louis Agassiz and others that
white and black people descended from different progenitors.
Bachman was also an important figure in the establishment of
Lutheranism in the Southeast. He wrote the first American monograph
on the doctrines of Martin Luther and the history of the
Reformation. Bachman served for fifty-six years as minister of St.
John's Lutheran Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and was one
of the founders of Newberry College.
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This
IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced
typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have
occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor
pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original
artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe
this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,
have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing
commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We
appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the
preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This
IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced
typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have
occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor
pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original
artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe
this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,
have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing
commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We
appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the
preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
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