Genevieve Jones: 19th Century Naturalist and Artist Rediscovered

Nearly everyone is familar with John James Audubon and his seminal color-plate book, The Birds of America. But few people are aware of another monumental volume of artwork, Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio.

Inspired by viewing Audubon's lithographs at the 1876 World's Fair in Philadelphia, twenty-nine-year-old amateur naturalist and artist Genevieve Jones began working on a companion volume to The Birds of America, illustrating the nests and eggs that Audubon omitted. Her brother collected the nests and eggs, her father paid for the publishing, and Genevieve learned lithography and began illustrating the specimens.

When Genevieve died suddenly of typhoid fever, her family labored for seven years to finish the project in her memory. The original book, sold by subscription in twenty-three parts, included Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Theodore Roosevelt among its subscribers.

Only ninety copies of the original book were published in 1886, and fewer than twenty-five copies now remain in institutions and private hands.

Featuring reproductions of all sixty-eight original color lithographs, archival photographs, selected field notes, and a key to the eggs and birds, America's Other Audubon chronicles for the first time the story behind the making of this extraordinary nineteenth century book. America's Other Audubon includes a foreword by Leslie K. Overstreet, curator of Natural-History Rare Books at the Smithsonian Institution.

Joy M. Kiser began her professional career as the librarian for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in 1995. In 2001, she moved to the Washington, DC area to become the librarian for National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). She now works as a writer/editor for the Federal Government.

Editor's Note: The Library of Congress has a copy of the Illustrations of the nests and eggs of birds of Ohio; illustrations by Mrs. N. E. Jones ; text by Howard Jones ... which can be viewed online, page by page or downloaded.

Spine title: Nests and eggs of birds of Ohio. The work of illustration was begun by Genevieve Estelle Jones and Eliza J. Schulze. Cf. preface. Issued in parts; pt. 1 published in 1879.

Audubon Dallas and the North Texas Master Naturalists will present author Joy M. Kiser at the Dallas Museum of Art Saturday, June 23 at 1:00pm

On July 19, 2012, Ms. Kiser will speak at a NOBS (Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society) Forum at Loganberry Books.

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Genevieve Jones: 19th Century Naturalist and Artist Rediscovered

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