John James Audubon
On 6 December 2010, a complete copy of the first edition was sold in London at Sotheby's for £7,321,250 (about $11.5 million). The winning bid was a record auction price for a printed book and was placed by a London-based art dealer, who outbid three others during the auction. According to the provenance details reported by the auction house, the copy's original owner was Henry Witham of Durham, listed as subscriber #11 in Audubon's Ornithological biography.