Cook's second voyage. The first edition of the official account of Cook's second voyage. Cook was sent by the Admiralty to ascertain whether a great Terra Australis really existed below the Antarctic Circle.

Cook circumnavigated Antarctica at high latitudes, captaining the first ship on record to cross the Antarctic Circle. Though discovering the South Sandwich Islands and South Georgia, he did not gain sight of a Southern Continent. What he did see were the pacific islands between New Zealand and South America, with much attention paid to the cultures and peoples he encountered. The plates show views, plants and fauna, indigenous handicrafts including weapons, and most importantly eighteen portraits of Pacific island peoples, including New Zealand, Tahiti, Amsterdam Island, Easter Island, Marquesas Islands, Raiatea Islands, Bora Bora, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tierra del Fuego.

'Cook was a brilliant navigator and hydrographer, an excellent administrator and planner, and probably the first sea captain to realize the importance of preserving the health and well-being of his crew…On his second voyage, of 112 men on board the Resolution, which he commanded, Cook lost only one by disease - and that not scurvy - a unique achievement in his time' (PMM).

First edition; 2 volumes, 4tos (30 x 24.5 cm); engraved portrait of Captain Cook by James Basire as frontispiece, 14 maps, 6 of which folding, 47 engraved plates after Hodges, 23 of which folding, 2 folding schematics, 1 folding letterpress table, most with tissue guards, armorial bookplates to front pastedowns, a touch of marginal toning, small marginal tears to plates V and II; contemporary dice-scored calf, rebacked with original spines laid down, boards gilt ruled, gilt spines in six compartments with gilt lettering pieces, a little wear to extremities, a very good set; xl, 378; viii, 396pp.

Beddie 1216; Hill 358; Holmes 24; PMM 223; Taurus 1.