“THE STUDY OF COOK IS THE ILLUMINATION OF ALL DISCOVERY”: HANDSOME COLLECTION OF FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS OF COOK’S THREE VOYAGES, WITH ATLAS VOLUME, INCLUDING THE FIRST ATTEMPTED MAPPING OF THE NORTHWEST COAST OF AMERICA

(COOK, James). Cook’s Three Voyages, Comprising: HAWKESWORTH, John. An Account of the Voyages undertaken… for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. Three volumes. WITH: COOK, James. A Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World. Two volumes. WITH: COOK, James and KING, James. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean… for making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere. Four volumes (three quarto volumes plus atlas folio). London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1773, 1779, 1784. Nine volumes altogether. Quarto (and altas folio), contemporary full marbled or mottled calf rebacked with original elaborately gilt-decorated spines laid down, raised bands, red and black morocco spine labels.

Scarce complete set of Cook’s three Pacific voyages, comprising the preferred second edition of the first voyage—issued the same year as the first, and “considered the best edition” (Hill)—along with first editions of the second and third voyages, complete with the splendid large folio atlas volume to accompany the third voyage. Superbly illustrated with 202 engraved charts, maps and plates, many double-page or folding.

Facing challenges surpassed only by modern space flight, Captain James Cook embodied the spirit of the great age of maritime discovery. The only 18th-century explorer to lead more than one Pacific voyage, he embarked on three circumnavigations between 1768 and 1776, essentially transforming into their modern form the dangerously unreliable maps of the Pacific’s expanse and the New World’s western coast. Official accounts of his three voyages, with their remarkable engravings and splendid atlas, found an eager public, the first edition of the final voyage selling out in three days. In the words of his principal biographer, “The study of Cook is the illumination of all discovery.”

“The famous accounts of Captain Cook’s three voyages form the basis for any collection of Pacific books. In three great voyages Cook did more to clarify the geographical knowledge of the Southern Hemisphere than all his predecessors had done together. He was the first really scientific navigator and his voyages made great contributions to many fields of knowledge” (Hill I, 61, 139). In his first voyage (1768-1771), Cook observed the Transit of Venus at Tahiti, rediscovered and charted New Zealand, and discovered and charted the east coast of Australia. In his second voyage (1772-75), Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time in history and disproved the existence of the supposed “Great Southern Continent.” In his third voyage (1776-79), he searched for the North-West Passage, charted the American west coast from Northern California through the Bering Strait, and discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he named the Sandwich Islands. This especially important third voyage was “the first voyage attempting an adequate examination and charting of our northwest coast” (Howes C729a). “Cook was the first navigator to accurately map the coast, and, by carrying away a collection of furs, he introduced the fur trade to the English and American traders, whose subsequent expeditions were based upon his discoveries… no other contemporaneously printed source narrative is of comparable importance” (Eberstadt 127: 353). This second edition of Hawkesworth’s account of the first voyage is “considered the best one” (Hill 783) and contains 52 engraved plates, maps and charts, several folding, and includes the strategically important (and previously suppressed) “Chart of the Streight of Magellan,” and the “Directions for placing the Cuts and Charts,” neither of which are present in the earliest issues of the first edition. This second, preferred edition also includes Hawkesworth’s Preface, containing his reply to a critical letter from Alexander Dalrymple. (Volumes II and III are also separately paginated, unlike the first edition, in which the pagination in these two volumes was continuous.). PMM 223. Sabin 30934, 16245, 16250. Holmes, Bibliography of Captain Cook, 5, 24, 47. Beddie, Bibliography of Captain James Cook, 650, 1216, 1543. Streeter VI: 3478. First and last voyages are armorial bindings containing the bookplates of Carton Library, from the library of the Irish noble the Duke of Leinster of Kildare.

Plates in atlas volume and throughout text exceptionally bright, with only a bit of foxing and occasional faint marginal dampstaining in a few volumes. Contemporary bindings exceptionally handsome. Very rare and important.