The American ornithologist Charles Barney Cory published by subscription "The Beautiful and Curious Birds of the World", a work containing 20 double elephant folio size plates, 27" x 21" in an edition of 200. The work was delivered to subscribers in seven parts over three years, from 1880 to 1883. The birds pictured were exotic and uncommon, and even included the extinct Dodo and Great Auk.