--The book appeals to a larger reading audience, as the quadruped essays themselves are rich with good stories about the mammals and the humans who observe, pursue, and admire them. They offer windows onto the early United States and much forgotten lore, often in the form of travel writing, natural history, and unique anecdotes, all told in the compelling voices of America's two leading naturalists at the time. --Daniel Patterson and Eric Russell shed new light on a gap in Audubon studies by critically presenting a neglected body of American nature writing to the public that will fascinate both academic and general readers. --Because the essays have been neglected by literary historians, Patterson and Russell show readers what to look for and contextualize that in the history of nature writing as well as in the rise of the life sciences in the first half of the nineteenth century. -- Tenacious of Life makes easily accessible a neglected (and rather large) body of good writing. --Patterson and Russell's full introduction will appeal to readers by engaging them in several stories about the making of Quadrupeds and the fascinating relationship between the two authors. Readers will appreciate the essays and see that a neglected American writer, Bachman, is now being given his appropriate place in our literary history. --Most of the interest in Quadrupeds has been in the art work, the lithographic plates produced from the original paintings; introductory material in Tenacious of Life composes the first full study of the essays.

--With the publication of a new facsimile edition of the original plates scheduled for February 2018 ( Audubon's Last Wilderness Journey: The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America ,ed. Charles T. Butler), readers of that volume will be interested in our critical anthology, as will all museums and libraries who hold copies of the original Quadrupeds .