Hawkesworth, John - Cook, Captain James
£12,500
Auction: 13 January 2010 at 11:00 GMT
Description
An account of the voyages undertaken by the order of His Present Majesty for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. London: printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1773. Second edition, 4to, [xii], xxxvi, [iv], [viii], 456; xiv, 410; [i-vi], 7-395, 3 volumes, 52 engraved plates, charts and maps, folding maps & plates backed on linen, some foxing, some offsetting to maps; Cook, Captain James A voyage towards the South Pole and round the World. London: printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1784. Fourth edition, 4to [xl, 378; [viii], 396, 2 volumes, engraved portrait frontispiece after W. Hodges, 63 plates, charts and maps, some folding, folding printed table at p.364, foxing to plates, two plates shaved; Cook, Captain James & King, Captain James A voyage to the Pacific Ocean... for making discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere. London: printed for G. Nicol and T. Cadell, 1785. Second edition, 4to [x], xcvi, 421; [xiv], 548; [xiv], 556, 4 volumes including the Atlas folio, 87 engraved plates, charts and maps, some folding, folding letterpress table in volume 3, bound without the supplementary Death of Cook plate, offsetting and foxing to plates, maps and text; text volumes uniformly bound in 19th century tree calf gilt, brown and black labels, Northern Lighthouse gilt stamp to backstrips, majority of maps and charts bound in folio plate volume, 19th century half calf gilt, Northern Light Board gilt stamp to backstrips, all volumes rubbed, hinges splitting (9)
Footnote
Note: An attractive set of Cook's Pacific voyges, one of the great classics of maritime exploration.
The original purpose of Cook's first voyage was to observe the transit of Venus. This was accomplished at Tahiti but six months were then spent on the coast of New Zealand, which was circumnavigated and charted for the first time, as was the east coast of Australia. It was of course Cook who named New South Wales and naturalists on the expedition who named Botany Bay. The second voyage disproved the myth of the existence of a further southern continent and made the first crossing of the Antarctic Circle. Numerous further explorations were undertaken and discoveries made, including the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and South Georgia. Knowledge of the South Pacific was given a firm basis for the first time and the maps made then remain valid today. The final voyage was principally directed towards the search for a Northwest Passage from the Pacific, culminating in Cook's tragic murder in the Hawaiian Islands.
The second edition of the first voyage differs from the first in that it contains a Preface to the second edition, in which Hawkesworth replies to the charges made against him by Alexander Dalrymple, and in that each volume is separately paginated. M.K. Beddie. BCJC 650; 1229; 1552; Hill, pp. 61-63; Sabin 30934; 16245; 16250