The Ruling Passion of John Gould: A Biography of the British Audubon

A British counterpart of Audubon, though not an artist, John Gould (1803-1881) wrote and published some 40 magnificent illustrated works about birds. A working-class man who began his career as a taxidermist, Gould devoted his entire life and all his works to gaining acceptance from society and science. Freelance journalist Tree paints a brilliant portrait of a determined man so obsessed with his subject that he was willing to destroy others to achieve his goals. Gould worked his wife, an artist, to death and ignored his children; he appropriated Edward Lear's lithographs and failed to credit those who collected birds for him. Yet he remains a towering figure in ornithology. The last person in his field to combine the disciplines of art and science, he identified the Galapagos finches for Darwin as a single species. His books are collectors' items. Illustations not seen by PW. (July)