ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

THE ‘AUDUBON CONTROVERSY’

Robert Buchanan was commissioned by the publishers, Sampson Low, Son & Marston, to write a biography of John James Audubon, or, rather, to edit a manuscript and other materials supplied by Audubon’s widow. The resulting book, The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist was published in 1868. It did not meet with the approval of Mrs. Audubon and, after three editions (and one in New York by E. P. Dutton & Co.), she prepared her own revised version of the work, with the help of James Grant Wilson. This was published in 1869 by G. P. Putnam as The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist. Then, in 1912, Buchanan’s original version was added to the ‘Everyman’s Library’ published by J. M. Dent & Sons in London and E. P. Dutton & Co. in New York. This resulted, rather ironically, in Buchanan’s The Life and Adventures of J. J. Audubon remaining in print far longer than most of his other works.

To shed a little more light on the ‘Audubon controversy’, below are Buchanan’s Preface from his original edition, James Grant Wilson’s Introduction to the revised edition, and extracts from the Preface to Audubon And His Journals by Maria R. Audubon and the opening chapter of Audubon The Naturalist by Francis Hobart Herrick.

The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist (original edition) (available at the Internet Archive).

EDITOR’S PREFACE.
_____

IN the autumn of 1867, the present publishers placed in my hands a large manuscript called the “Life of Audubon,” prepared by a friend of Mrs. Audubon’s, in New York, chiefly consisting of extracts from the diary of the great American naturalist. It needed careful revision, and was, moreover, inordinately long. While I cannot fail expressing my admiration for the affectionate spirit and intelligent sympathy with which the friendly editor discharged his task, I am bound to say that his literary experience was limited. My business, therefore, has been sub-editorial rather than editorial. I have had to cut down what was prolix and unnecessary, and to connect the whole in some sort of a running narrative,—and the result is a volume equal in bulk to about one-fifth of the original manuscript. I believe I have omitted nothing of real interest, but I am of course not responsible in any way for the fidelity of what is given. The episodes, wherever they occur, I have given pretty much in full, as being not only much better composed than the diary, but fuller of those associations on which Audubon rests his fame.
     In a letter recently received from Mrs. Audubon, and written after looking over a few of the first sheets, I am called to account for some remarks of my own. It is the excellent lady’s belief that because I am “a Scotchman,” I underrate her husband and overrate Wilson. I am credited with an “inimical feeling towards Mr. Audubon, whose sentiments of gratitude and his expressions of them are beautiful towards all his friends;” and while quite agreeing in that opinion, I cannot help retaining my doubt whether the publication of these “expressions” would gratify the public. Then, again, I have called Audubon vain, and perhaps a little selfish, and I can perfectly understand how hard these words may seem to the gentle heart of a loving wife. Yet they are nevertheless true, and are quite consistent with the fact that I admire Audubon hugely, think him a grand and large-hearted man, and have the greatest possible desire to see him understood by the public.
     But in order to get him understood one must put aside all domestic partiality. Call Audubon vain, call him in some things selfish, call him flighty, and inconsequential in his worldly conduct,—all these qualities are palpable in every page of the diary. He was handsome, and he knew it; he was elegant, and he prided himself upon it. He was generous in most things, but he did not love his rivals. He prattled about himself like an infant, gloried in his long hair, admired the fine curve of his nose, thought “blood” a great thing, and reverenced the great. Well, happy is the man who has no greater errors than these.
     Audubon was a man of genius, with the courage of a lion and the simplicity of a child. One scarcely knows which to admire most—the mighty determination which enabled him to carry out his great work in the face of difficulties so huge, or the gentle and guileless sweetness with which he throughout shared his thoughts and aspirations with his wife and children. He was more like a child at the mother’s knee, than a husband at the hearth—so free was the prattle, so thorough the confidence. Mrs. Audubon appears to have been a wife in every respect worthy of such a man; willing to sacrifice her personal comfort at any moment for the furtherance of his great schemes; ever ready with kiss and counsel when such were most needed; never failing for a moment in her faith that Audubon was destined to be one of the great workers of the earth.
     The man’s heart was restless; otherwise he would never have achieved so much. He must wander, he must vagabondize, he must acquire; he was never quite easy at the hearth. His love for nature was passionate indeed, pursuing him in all regions, burning in him to the last. Among the most touching things in the diary, are the brief exclamations of joy when something in the strange city—a flock of wild ducks overhead in London, a gathering of pigeons on the trees of Paris—reminds him of the wild life of wood and plain. He was boy-like to the last, glorying most when out of doors. His very vanity and selfishness, such as they were, were innocent and boyish—they were without malice, and savoured more of pique than gall.
     Of the work Audubon has done, nothing need be said in praise here. Even were I competent to discuss his merits as an ornithologist and ornithological painter, I should be silent, for the world has already settled those merits in full. I may trust myself, however, to say one word in praise of Audubon as a descriptive writer. Some of his reminiscences of adventure, some of which are published in this book, seem to me to be quite as good, in vividness of presentment and careful colouring, as anything I have ever read.
     With these few words of explanation and preface, I may safely leave this volume to the public. The initiated will find much quite novel matter, and general readers will discover plenty of amusing incidents and exciting adventures.

                                                                                                                                                       R. B.
     London, October 1st, 1868.

The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist (revised edition) (available at the Internet Archive).

INTRODUCTION.
_____

     IN the summer of 1867, the widow of John James Audubon, completed with the aid of a friend, a memoir of the great naturalist, and soon after received overtures from a London publishing house for her work. Accepting their proposition for its publication in England, Mrs. Audubon forwarded the MSS., consisting in good part of extracts from her husband’s journals and episodes, as he termed his delightful reminiscences of adventure in various parts of the New World. The London publishers placed these MSS. in the hands of Mr. Robert Buchanan, who prepared from them a single volume containing about one fifth of the original manuscript.
     The following pages are substantially the recently published work, reproduced with some additions, and the omission of several objectionable passages inserted by the London editor. Should Mrs. Audubon hereafter receive her manuscript, containing sufficient material for four volumes of printed matter, and including many charming episodes “born from his traveling thigh,” as Ben Jonson quaintly expressed it, the American public may confidently look forward to other volumes, uniform with this one, of the Naturalist’s writings.
     I do not deem it necessary to say aught in commendation of the labors of the loving and gentle wife in preparing the following admirable memoir of her grand and large-hearted husband,—

“That cheerful one, who knoweth all
The songs of all the winged choristers,
And in one sequence of melodious sound,
Pours out their music.”

     Her delightful volume will better speak for itself. Nor do I deem it requisite to dwell at length on the works of Audubon, pronounced by Baron Cuvier to be “the most splendid monuments which art has erected in honor of ornithology.”
     He was an admirable specimen of the Hero as a man of science. To quote an eloquent writer: “For sixty years or more he followed, with more than religious devotion, a beautiful and elevated pursuit, enlarging its boundaries by his discoveries, and illustrating its objects by his art. In all climates and in all weathers; scorched by burning suns, drenched by piercing rains, frozen by the fiercest colds; now diving fearlessly into the densest forest, now wandering alone over the most savage regions; in perils, in difficulties, and in doubts; with no companion to cheer his way, far from the smiles and applause of society; listening only to the sweet music of birds, or to the sweeter music of his own thoughts, he faithfully kept his path. The records of man’s life contain few nobler examples of strength of purpose and indefatigable energy. Led on solely by his pure, lofty, kindling enthusiasm, no thirst for wealth, no desire of distinction, no restless ambition of eccentric character, could have induced him to undergo as many sacrifices, or sustained him under so many trials. Higher principles and worthier motives alone enabled him to meet such discouragements and accomplish such miracles of achievement He has enlarged and enriched the domains of a pleasing and useful science; he has revealed to us the existence of many species of birds before unknown; he has given us more accurate information of the forms and habits of those that were known; he has corrected the blunders of his predecessors; and he has imparted to the study of natural history the grace and fascination of romance.”
     Of the man himself, Christopher North said, after speaking lovingly and appreciatively of him, “He is the greatest Artist in his own walk, that ever lived.” The love of his vocation, after innumerable trials, successes and disappointments gave the lie to the Quo fit Macænas of Horace, and was to the end of his long life most intense. Neither his friends, Sir Walter Scott, or John Wilson, notably happy as they were in their home relations occupied a place in the domestic circle of husband and father, with a more beautiful display of kind, ennobling, and generous devotion, than John James Audubon; and nothing in his whole character stands out in a purer and more honorable light, than his discharge of all the duties of home. In private life his virtues endeared him to a large circle of devoted admirers; his sprightly conversation, with a slight French accent; his soft and gentle voice; his frank and fine face, “aye gat him friends in ilka place.” With those whose privilege it was to know the Naturalist, so full of fine enthusiasm and intelligence; with so much simplicity of character, frankness and genius, he will continue to live in their memories, though “with the buried gone;” while to the artistic, literary, and scientific world, he has left an imperishable name that is not in the keeping of history alone. Long after the bronze statue of the naturalist that we hope soon to see erected in the Central Park, shall have been wasted and worn beyond recognition, by the winds and rains of Heaven; while the towering and snow-covered peak of the Rocky Mountains known as Mount Audubon, shall rear its lofty head among the clouds; while the little wren chirps about our homes, and the robin and reed-bird sing in the green meadows; while the melody of the mocking-bird is heard in the cypress swamps of Louisiana, or the shrill scream of the eagle on the frozen shores of the Northern seas, the name of John James Audubon, the gifted Artist, the ardent lover of Nature, and the admirable writer, will live in the hearts of his grateful countrymen.
     In the preface to the London edition of this work, I find the following just and generous words:—
     “Audubon was a man of genius, with the courage of a lion and the simplicity of a child. One scarcely knows which to admire most—the mighty determination which enabled him to carry out his great work in the face of difficulties so huge, or the gentle and guileless sweetness with which he throughout shared his thoughts and aspirations with his wife and children. He was more like a child at the mother’s knee, than a husband at the hearth—so free was the prattle, so thorough the confidence. Mrs. Audubon appears to have been a wife in every respect worthy of such a man; willing to sacrifice her personal comfort at any moment for the furtherance of his great schemes; ever ready with kiss and counsel when such were most needed; never failing for a moment in her faith that Audubon was destined to be one of the great workers of the earth.
     “The man’s heart was restless; otherwise he would never have achieved so much. He must wander, he must vagabondize, he must acquire; he was never quite easy at the hearth. His love for Nature was passionate indeed, pursuing in all regions, burning in him to the last. Among the most touching things in the diary, are the brief exclamations of joy when something in the strange city—a flock of wild ducks overhead in London, a gathering of pigeons on the trees of Paris—reminds him of the wild life of wood and plain. He was boy-like to the last, glorying most when out of doors.
     “Of the work Audubon has done, nothing need be said in praise here. Even were I competent to discuss his merits as an ornithologist and ornithological painter, I should be silent, for the world has already settled those merits in full. I may trust myself, however, to say one word in praise of Audubon as a descriptive writer. Some of his reminiscences of adventure, some of which are published in this book, seem to me to be quite as good, in vividness of presentment and careful colouring, as anything I have ever read.”

                                                                                                                                                   J. G. W.
51 St. Mark’s Place,
         New York, April, 1869.

From the Preface to Audubon and his Journals by Maria R. Audubon (available at the Internet Archive).

(pp. ix-x)

     “The Life of Audubon, the Naturalist, edited by Mr. Robert Buchanan from material supplied by his widow,”  covers, or is supposed to cover, the same ground I have gone over. That the same journals were used is obvious; and besides these, others, destroyed by fire in Shelbyville, Ky., were at my grandmother’s command, and more than all, her own recollections and voluminous diaries. Her manuscript, which I never saw, was sent to the English publishers, and was not returned to the author by them or by Mr. Buchanan. How much of it was valuable, it is impossible to say; but the fact remains that Mr. Buchanan’s book is so mixed up, so interspersed with anecdotes and episodes, and so interlarded with derogatory remarks of his own, as to be practically useless to the world, and very unpleasant to the Audubon family. Moreover, with few exceptions everything about birds has been left out. Many errors in dates and names are apparent, especially the date of the Missouri River journey, which is ten years later than he states. However, if Mr. Buchanan had done his work better, there would have been no need for mine; so I forgive him, even though he dwells at unnecessary length on Audubon’s vanity and selfishness, of which I find no traces.
     In these journals, nine in all, and in the hundred or so of letters, written under many skies, and in many conditions of life, by a man whose education was wholly French, one of the journals dating as far back as 1822, and some of the letters even earlier,—there is not one sentence, one expression, that is other than that of a refined and cultured gentleman. More than that, there is not one utterance of “anger, hatred or malice.” Mr. George Ord and Mr. Charles Waterton were both my grandfather’s bitter enemies, yet one he rarely mentions, and of the latter, when he says, “I had a scrubby letter from Waterton,” he has said his worst.
     But the journals will speak for themselves better than I can, and so I send them forth, believing that to many they will be of absorbing interest, as they have been to me.

                                                                                                                                                   M. R. A.

From Chapter 1 of Audubon the Naturalist by Francis Hobart Herrick (available at the Internet Archive).

(pp. 18-23)

     In 1868 there appeared in England a work of combined and confused authorship, commonly referred to as “Buchanan’s Life of Audubon,” the “sub-editor,” as he called himself, having since become better known as an original, skilled and prolific writer of verse, drama, fiction and literary criticism. At that time Robert Buchanan was twenty-six years old, and had published five volumes of poems in rapid succession, some of which had been received with favor by the public. A second and third edition of this Life followed in 1869. Finally the work was resurrected and again sent to press, unrevised, in 1912, when it appeared in “Everyman’s Library,” at a shilling a copy, with an introduction which had served as a review of the work in 1869.
     A recent biographer of Alexander Wilson speaks of Buchanan as “commissioned by Mrs. Audubon to write her husband’s life,” but the lady herself, as well as Buchanan, has told a different story. It seems that in about the year 1866, Mrs. Audubon prepared, “with the aid of a friend,” an extended memoir of her husband, which was offered to an American publisher but without success. The “friend,” at whose home Mrs. Audubon was then living, was the Rev. Charles Coffin Adams, ¹¹ rector of St. Mary’s Church, Manhattanville, now 135th, Street, New York. The Adams manuscript, which consisted chiefly of a transcript from the naturalist’s journals, then in possession of his wife, was completed presumably in 1867. In the summer of that year it was placed in the hands of the London publishers,

     ¹¹ Rev. Dr. Adams was rector of this parish for twenty-five years, from 1863 to his death in February, 1888; he was the author of three volumes on religious subjects and various smaller tracts; from 1855 to 1863 he had charge of a church in Baltimore, Maryland, and while there published an anonymous pamphlet entitled “Slavery by a Marylander; Its Institution and Origin; Its Status Under the Law and Under the Gospel” (8 pp. 8vo. Baltimore, 1860).

Messrs. Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, who without any authority turned it over to one of their hard-pressed, pot-boihng retainers, Robert Buchanan, poet and young man of genius. Buchanan boiled down the original manuscript, as he said, to one-fifth of its original compass, cutting out what he regarded as prolix or unnecessary and connecting “the whole with some sort of a running narrative.” ¹² Mrs. Audubon was unable to recover her property from either publishers or editor or to obtain any satisfaction for its unwarranted use. Whatever defects the Adams memoir may have possessed, this is much to be regretted, since, as her granddaughter has said, Mrs. Audubon had at her command many valuable documents, the originals of which have since been destroyed.
     Buchanan, like Audubon, had been reared in comparative luxury, “the spoiled darling of a loving mother.” After the failure of his father in various newspaper enterprises about four years before this time, he had gone up to London with but few shillings in his pocket and had begun life there literally in a garret. The reflection that Audubon had fought a similar but much harder battle in that same London thirty years before, and won, should possibly have awakened in him a somewhat friendlier spirit than was then displayed. It must be admitted, however, that Buchanan produced a very readable story, although there was not a word in his whole book which showed any real sympathy with

     ¹² Buchanan said that the manuscript submitted to him was inordinately long and needed careful revision; he added that “while he could not fail to express his admiration for the affectionate spirit and intelligent sympathy with which the friendly editor discharged his task, he was bound to say that his literary experience was limited.” After copying a passage from one of Audubon’s journals, this editor had the unfortunate habit of drawing his pen through the original; in this way hundreds of pages of Audubon’s admirable “copper-plate” were irretrievably defaced.

Audubon’s lifelong pursuits, any knowledge of ornithology, or any interest in natural science. Though expressing unbounded admiration for the naturalist, his foibles and faults seem to have hidden from this biographer the true value of his distinguished services. In respect to a knowledge of natural history it should be added that Buchanan laid no claims, and of Audubon’s accomplishments in this field comparatively little was said, the book, like the Adams’ manuscript from which it was drawn, being mainly composed of extracts from the naturalist’s private journals and “Episodes,” as he called his descriptive papers. It was here that Audubon made the strongest appeal to this literary editor, who concluded his preface with the following words of praise: “Some of his reminiscences of adventure . . . seem to me to be quite as good, in vividness of presentment and careful colouring, as anything I have ever read.”
     Buchanan dilated on Audubon’s pride, vanity and self-conceit, faults which may have belonged to his youth but which were never mentioned by his intimate friends and contemporaries except under conditions which reflected rather unfavorably upon themselves. Complaints on this score were spread broadcast by reviewers of this work, seventeen years after the naturalist’s death and with the suddenness of a new discovery. They were undoubtedly based on the unconscious and allowable egotisms of such personal records as Audubon habitually made for the members of his family when time and distance kept them asunder. Vanity and selfishness could have formed no essential parts of a character that merited the eulogy which follows:

     Audubon was a man of genius, with the courage of a lion and the simplicity of a child. One scarcely knows which to admire most—the mighty determination which enabled him to carry out his great work in the face of difficulties so huge, or the gentle and guileless sweetness with which he throughout shared his thoughts and aspirations with his wife and children. He was more like a child at the mother’s knee, than a husband at the hearth—so free was the prattle, so thorough the confidence. Mrs. Audubon appears to have been a wife in every respect worthy of such a man; willing to sacrifice her personal comfort at any moment for the furtherance of his great schemes; ever ready with kiss and counsel when such were most needed; never failing for a moment in her faith that Audubon was destined to be one of the great workers of the earth. ¹³

     No one will deny, however, that Buchanan was right in saying that in order to get a man like Audubon understood, all domestic partiality, the bane of much biography, must be put aside; but it is equally important to make such allowances as the manifold circumstances of time and place demand, and to be a reasoner rather than a fancier. This work abounds in errors, but it is not clear to what extent they were due to carelessness on Buchanan’s part.
     It was certainly a mistake to attribute Buchanan’s attitude to partiality for Alexander Wilson, who, like himself, was a Scotchman. It was a case of temperament only, for gloom and poverty had embittered his life. As his sister-in-law and biographer ¹⁴ said of him, “he was doomed to much ignoble pot-boiling. . . . He had few friends and many enemies,” and “had received from the world many cruel blows,” while “no man needed kindness so much and received so little.”

     ¹³ Robert Buchanan, The Life of Audubon (Bibl. No. 72), p. vi.       
     ¹⁴ See Harriet Jay, Robert Buchanan: Some Account of His Life, His Life’s Work, and His Literary Friendships (London, 1903). Robert Williams Buchanan was born at Caverswell, Lancashire, August 18, 1841, and died in London, June 10, 1901.

Perhaps the best key to the sad history of this able writer was given by himself when he said: “It is my vice that I must love a thing wholly, or dislike it wholly.” His wife, we are told, was much like himself, and “like a couple of babies they muddled through life, tasting of some of its joys, but oftener of its sorrows.” Undoubtedly Robert Buchanan was a genuine lover of truth and beauty; he has written numerous sketches of birds and outdoor scenes, but with no suggestion of nature as serving any other purpose than that of supplying a poet with bright and pleasing images.
     It was with the purpose of correcting the false impressions created by animadversions in Buchanan’s Life that Mrs. Audubon, with the aid of her friend, James Grant Wilson, revised this work and published it in America under her name as editor, in 1869. The changes then made in Buchanan’s text, however, were of a minor character and most of its errors remained uncorrected. The naturalist’s granddaughter, Miss Maria R. Audubon, was inspired in part by similar feelings in preparing, with the aid of Dr. Elliott Coues, her larger and excellent work in two volumes, entitled Audubon, and His Journals, which appeared in 1898. To her all admirers of Audubon owe a debt of gratitude for giving to the world for the first time a large part of his extant journals, as well as many new facts bearing upon his life and character. Other briefer biographies of Audubon which have appeared have been taken so completely from the preceding works, and have repeated and extended their errors to such an extent, as to call for little or no comment either here or in the pages which follow.
     Through the discovery in France of new documentary evidence in surprising abundance we are obliged to draw conclusions contrary to those which have hitherto been accepted, and the new light thus obtained enables us to form a more accurate and just judgment of Audubon the man, and of his work.

___

From ‘London Correspondence’ in The Glasgow Herald (13 February, 1951).

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