The Journal of H.M.S. Resolution 1772-1775.

one of 50 copies specially bound by Zaehnsdorf and signed by Admiral of the Fleet Mountbatten

The full facsimile of the British Library's copy of Captain Cook's manuscript journal for his second voyage, in which he was sent by the Admiralty to ascertain whether a great Terra Australis really existed below the Antarctic Circle. The Resolution was the first vessel on record to cross the Antarctic Circle, the first to use the Larcum Kendall K1 chronometer to keep longitude, and definitively disproved the Terra Australis theory.

'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).

The British Library copy is the 'most authentic account of Cook's second voyage available' and was used by the great Pacific scholar J. G. Beaglehole as his definitive version. This was also the first time Cook prepared his journals in direct anticipation of publishing them to the public. Cook had seen how well Hawkesworth had done with his journals for the first voyage and endeavoured to be the editor of the second. This would go on to cause significant friction with the official botanist, George Forster, who had been partially enticed to accompany the voyage on the promise of being the editor of the journals that would result.

As well as the facsimile of Cook's journal the work has prefatory essays on the history of the original manuscript, the scientists Johann Reinhold and George Forster, Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman, the astronomer William Wales, and official Draughtsman William Hodges, as well as illustrative plates and appendices of some of Forster's notes on fishes and lichen.

Anniversary edition, 1 of 50 specially bound copies (no. 158), signed by Admiral of the Fleet Mountbatten; folio, (35 x 25 cm); signed by Mountbatten to edition page, 20 pages of illustrations, 13 off-set lithograph plates including six in colour and tipped in; original full black morocco by Zaehnsdorf, boards ruled and framed in gilt with a gilt vignette of Resolution to upper board and facsimile James Cook signature to lower board, gilt inner dentelles, spine in six elaborately gilt compartments, all edges gilt, housed in original clamshell case with gilt vignette of Resolution to upper cover, gilt morocco lettering piece to spine, a fine copy.