United States
£ GBP
Please note (December 2013): we are in contact with a supplier who has a batch of new and unsold stock of this title and can as such make the book available again as long as their stocks last.
This is a wonderful and remarkable book by an extraordinary wildlife artist. Fuller's creativity and imagination illuminate what might otherwise be a somewhat gruesome account of an obsessive quest in search of all that can now be known about this extinct bird. Highly recommended.
Perhaps the most curious of all vanished birds, the Great Auk commands an enormous following among naturalists and its strange and mysterious story is told in the pages of this book. Not reliably seen since 1844, this remarkable bird has become one of the great icons of extinction.
With more than 200 colour plates and a similar number of black and white pictures, this beautiful book brings together almost every known archival image of the species, along with dramatic photographs of the lonely islands it once inhabitated and intriguing pictures of the many fascinating characters involved in the Great Auk's tragic story.
"Fuller brings a scientist's knowledge, an artist's passion, and a boxer's tenacity to his impossible quest. He has visited scores of museums, private collections, and archives, seeking every sketch and painting and every known egg and mounted specimen (seventy-eight still exist). Fuller has built a passionate, idiosyncratic book around these and other relics, including bones, beaks, letters, newspaper clippings, and even a rare, battered tin of Great Auk cigarettes – an extinct English brand."
- Richard Milner, Natural History magazine
