Publisher's Synopsis
RoutledgeCurzon, in partnership with Atlas Books and Edition Synapse, is publishing a limited edition facsimile of the three epic voyages of Captain James Cook. With a new introduction by Anthony Payne, Honorary Secretary of the Hakluyt Society, and specialist in Pacific voyages at Bernard Quaritch. James Cook (1728-1779) was born a labourer's son. He became a seaman in the Baltic trade and joined the navy, becoming master in 1759 and surveying the St. Lawrence in the same year. In 1968 he sailed in the Endeavour for Tahiti, round Cape Horn; observed the transit of Venus, 3 June; charted the coasts of New Zealand, the east coast of Australia, and part of New Guinea, and returned by the Cape of Good Hope. He sailed in the Resolution to disprove the existence of an Antarctic continent, 1772; rounded the Cape of Good Hope, 22 November 1772; visited many Pacific islands; skirted the Antarctic icefields, 1773-5; and reached Plymouth, 1775, having escaped, through new health rules, scurvy and fever.;In 1776 he attempted to sail round North America from the Pacific, passed the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1778 discovered the Sandwich Islands; charted the Pacific coast of North America; touched at Hawaii in 1779, was driven off by storm, and on putting back to refit was killed by the island's inhabitants. The edition will be to original size (8 quarto volumes plus folio atlas) and all plates, charts and maps reproduced to the highest production values, making this edition attractive to specialist collectors as well as to research libraries. The volumes will be bound in contemporary style paper boards to enhance the original character.
