Voyage dans l'hémisphère austral et autour du monde [ressource électronique] : fait sur les vaisseaux de roi, l'Aventure & la Résolution, en 1772, 1773, 1774 & 1775

Author: James Cook (1728-1779)

Year: 1778

Publisher: Hotel de Thou

Place: Paris

Description:

7 volumes. Six octavo text volumes and quarto atlas. lii+496 pages. 514+[ii] pages. 500 pages. 499 pages. 423 pages. viii+368 pages with tables (one folding) octavos (8 x 5 1/4") bound in full leather with five raised spine bands with red labels to spine in gilt letter and decorative insets. Atlas volume 66 engraved plates (many folding or double-page) Quarto (10 1/2" x 9") bound in full leather with five raised spine bands with black label to spine lettered in gilt. translated by Suard, (Brunet II, 255; Beddie/Mitchell 1224) First French octavo edition.

Two French editions, both translated by Suard, appeared in 1778: one in five text volumes together with an atlas volume with 65 plates; and the present work, in six text volumes with an atlas volume containing 66 plates. The importance of the present work lies in the fact that Suard adds passages by Forster not included in his earlier work.

The second voyage of James Cook, from 1772 to 1775, commissioned by the British government with advice from the Royal Society, was designed to circumnavigate the globe as far south as possible to finally determine whether there was any great southern landmass, or Terra Australis. It was originally planned that the naturalist Joseph Banks but he refused. Instead the position was taken by Johann Reinhold Forster and his son, Georg, who were taken on as Royal Society scientists for the voyage.

On 17 January 1773, Resolution was the first ship to venture south of the Antarctic Circle, which she did twice more on this voyage. The final such crossing, on 3 February 1774, was to be the most southerly penetration, reaching latitude 71°10′ South at longitude 106°54′ West. Cook undertook a series of vast sweeps across the Pacific, finally proving there was no Terra Australis in temperate latitudes by sailing over most of its predicted locations. In the course of the voyage he visited Easter Island, the Marquesas, Tahiti, the Society Islands, Niue, the Tonga Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, Palmerston Island, South Sandwich Islands, and South Georgia, many of which he named in the process. Cook proved the Terra Australis Incognita to be a myth[ and predicted that an Antarctic land would be found beyond the ice barrier.

On his return to England, Forster claimed that he had been granted exclusive publication rights to the history of the voyage by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich – a claim that Sandwich vehemently denied. Cook was writing his own account assisted by Dr John Douglas, Canon of Windsor. Eventually, Sandwich agreed that Forster and his son could add a scientific section to Cook's account of the voyage. This led to so much animosity between Forster and Sandwich that Sandwich banned him from writing or publishing anything about the voyage. To avoid the ban, Forster's son Georg wrote a report instead, titled A Voyage Round the World, which was published in 1777, six weeks before Cook's account appeared. Cook never read Forster's book because it was published after he left on his third voyage, from which he did not return.

Cook's accounts of the large seal and whale populations helped influence further exploration of the Southern Ocean from sealers in search of the mammals' valued skins. In the 19th century over one thousand sealing ships travelled to the Antarctic regions and its shoreline.

Condition:

 Rubbing to extremities; some very light intermittent spotting, corners bumped, some scuffing to leather. Provenance: Henry C. McLean (ownership book-plates). else a very good set.