Although best remembered for his massive four-volume Birds of America and his five-volume Ornithological Biography, John James Audubon left other writings, including a 26-volume journal. Only three full books and fragments of this journal remain.
Several were lost in a warehouse fire; and some were retranscribed and so heavily altered by his puritanical granddaughter to fit Victorian morals that they are unreliable. After editing them, she destroyed the originals.
Audubon wrote these journals in King James English, although French was his native tongue. They are speckled with archaic "thees" and "thous" and many of the terms he used are unfamiliar to modern readers. For example, he used "Rocky Point" for the city of Little Rock and "white headed eagle" for bald eagle.
His remaining journals, the series of narratives he called "Episodes" (that are printed with his published journals), his correspondence, the notes on his paintings and his Ornithological Biography allow us to piece together a sequence of events for his Arkansas visits.
-- Jerry Butler
ActiveStyle on 12/22/2014