[Three Voyages & The Life]

First Editions of all three voyages, a complete set of the official accounts of Captain Cook’s three voyages around the world. “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). His contributions to the advancement of knowledge were widely recognised in his own time. During his Third Voyage, when Britain and America were at War, Benjamin Franklin, who had met Cook in London and was then serving the Colonies’ representative at the Court in Paris, wrote a general laissez passer for the expedition, requesting that the American and French fleets leave them unmolested, declaring that “The Increase of Geographical Knowledge facilitates the Communication between distant Nations in the Exchange of useful Products and Manufactures and the Extension of Arts whereby the common enjoyments of Human Life are multiply'd and augmented, and Science of other kinds encreas'd to the Benefit of Mankind in general.” Cook’s many discoveries resulted in British claims in Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, the last of which he regarded as his most valuable discovery, but where he met his death. “He also suggested the existence of Antarctic land in the southern ice ring, a fact which was not proved until the explorations of the nineteenth century” (PMM).

In all 11 volumes, 9 text volumes, 4to, Voyages (302 × 239mm), Life (286 × 233mm), and 2 atlas folios, Second Voyage plates (513 × 310mm), Third Voyage (555 × 310mm) Text volumes in early C19th tan straight-grained morocco, gilt panel to the sides, rope-twist rolled inner dentelles, skilfully rebacked to style by Aquarius, ship devices gilt to the compartments with paraph corner-pieces, red morocco lettering-pieces, green numbering pieces with red morocco roundel onlays, some discreet restoration to the corners and edges, atlases bound in matching half morocco on marbled boards. The First Voyage in 3 volumes, with 53 maps, charts, coastal profiles and plates bound in, the majority of them folding; Second Voyage, South Pole, in 2 volumes, with portrait frontispiece of Cook engraved by Basire after William Hodges bound in and 63 engraved maps and plates in the atlas; Third Voyage, Pacific Ocean, in 3 volumes, with 24 maps, charts and profiles bound in and 61 plates and 2 maps in the atlas, without the rare “Death of Cook” plate. Kippis’ Life with portrait frontispiece engraved by Heath after the Dance portrait “in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks.” Some browning, occasional soiling, one or two minor flaws, but overall a very good and well-presented set.