The “Cardinal Grosbeak” is plate 159 of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America, one of the world’s rarest books. The Watkinson Library’s copy of the book is among the finest still in existence. It was originally owned by engraver Robert Havell, who brought it to America in 1839. Just before his death in 1878, Havell sold it to a dealer, who in turn sold it to Trinity alumnus Gurdon Russell, Class of 1834. Russell donated it to Trinity in 1900, and it became the cornerstone of a collection of natural history and ornithology, augmented in 1983 by the gift of more than 6,000 volumes of ornithology and an endowed fund to support the collection by Ostrom Enders H’76. Read more about the book.
