COOK, Capitaine James - An abridgement of Captain Cook's last voyage : performed in the years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, and - 1794

"James Cook (1728-1779) was a navigator, explorer, cartographer, and captain of the British Royal Navy. He produced detailed maps of Newfoundland, the Canadian island, before making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he established the first recorded contact of Europeans with the eastern coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, as well as the first circumnavigation of New Zealand. On his Pacific journeys, Cook sailed thousands of miles through uncharted regions of the globe, charted lands in New Zealand and Hawaii in great detail and to a scale never before achieved. As he progressed on his voyages of discovery, he explored and named various places, in addition to recording the locations of islands and coasts on European maps for the first time. Many islands, such as Easter Island and the Hawaiian archipelago, were located with certainty for the first time by Europeans, and his greatest achievement was the creation of detailed naval cartography of large areas of the Pacific.

Valued and sought after illustrated edition, printed in London in 1794, of the "Summary of Captain Cook’s last voyage to make discoveries in the northern hemisphere by order of His Majesty". Complete work in one volume, illustrated with 9 engravings, 2 of them folding, including the world map with all of Cook’s voyages. Complete with engravings. These illustrations provide valuable visual documentation of the explorations, nautical charts, scenes of daily life, and portraits of the local populations encountered.

The work focuses mainly on the third and final expedition of the famous explorer James Cook: the search for the Northwest Passage across the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Islands, and Cook’s death in Hawaii (1779). It is a condensed, popular edition, typical of the eighteenth century, of the official journal of James Cook’s travels. It was published in a smaller format to facilitate reading by the general public, unlike the expensive quarto editions.

Cook’s third voyage aimed to discover a sea passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through northwest America. Cook managed to reach the Arctic Ocean via the Bering Strait, but the ice prevented him from going further. During this voyage, Cook discovered and explored the Hawaiian Islands (which he named the Sandwich Islands) and the entire northwest coast of America; he also explored Tasmania, New Zealand, the Harvey Islands, Tonga, Tahiti, and the Kerguelen Islands. Cook died in an unfortunate skirmish with the natives in 1779 while attempting to abduct a monarch of a Hawaiian island in order to reclaim a vessel taken from one of his ships after his crew had carried away wood from a local cemetery. The book contains detailed descriptions of landscapes, indigenous peoples and their customs, as well as precise scientific and cartographic observations.

COOK, Capitaine James (1728-1779), An abridgement of Captain Cook's last voyage: performed in the years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780, for making discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere, by Order of His Majesty. Extracted from the Quarto Edition, in three volumes. Containing a relation of all the interesting transactions, particularly those relative to the unfortunate death of Captain Cook; to which are added, extracts from Captain King's account of his life and public services. London: Printed for C. and G. Kearsley, 1794.

Beautiful binding reusing a fragment of a seventeenth-century choral book on two-colour paper. Worn but sturdy. This practice of recycling ancient manuscripts for binding, very common in the history of the book, is known to codicologists as "membra disiecta" (dispersed fragments). Small tears without loss on the world map, pages fatigued and somewhat oxidized. Original text in English. 18 x 11.5 cm, 505 g. [24], 442, [14] pp. Voyages by sea - Pacific Ocean - Travels and explorations in Oceania.


Ref. library: C95390820875