Complete History of Captain Cook's First, Second, Third and Last Voyages 1784-86
 
Captain James Cook’s voyages were a whirlwind of high-seas peril and groundbreaking discovery. His first two expeditions pushed the Endeavour and Resolution to the limits of human endurance, narrowly escaping destruction on the Great Barrier Reef and battling towering icebergs in the freezing Antarctic Circle. Between 1768 and 1775, Cook and his crew navigated uncharted waters, clashing with unknown currents and forging tense, often volatile first encounters with Indigenous cultures from Tahiti to New Zealand. Every mile was a fight against scurvy and the unpredictable elements of the Pacific, transforming the blank spaces of the world map into documented reality through sheer grit and naval precision.The final chapter began in 1776 as Cook ventured north in a desperate hunt for the Northwest Passage, navigating the jagged, ice-choked coasts of Alaska and the Bering Strait. However, the saga reached its violent apex in 1779 on the shores of Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay. What began as a return for repairs spiraled into a chaotic confrontation fueled by cultural misunderstandings and a stolen lifeboat. Amidst a frantic skirmish on the beach, Cook was overwhelmed and killed, leaving his crew to navigate the long, somber journey home. This 1784-86 collection immortalizes that era, a brutal, breathless chronicle of an age where the horizon was the only limit.
 
Complete Official Title:
"A New, Authentic, and Complete Collection of Voyages Round the World, Undertaken and Performed by Royal Authority. Containing a New, Authentic, Entertaining, Instructive, Full and Complete History of Captain Cook's First, Second, Third and Last Voyages. The Whole of these Voyages of Capt. James Cook, &c. being Newly written by the Editors from the Authentic Journals of Several Principal Officers and other Gentlemen of the most Distinguished Naval and Philosophical Abilities, who sailed in the Various Ships. Assisted, Very Materially, by a Principal Officer who sailed in the Resolution Sloop, and by Many Other Gentlemen of the Royal Navy." COOK, James - ANDERSON, George William (ed.). 1784-86

CONDITION: 
Title Page Supplied in High Quality Facsimile
Complete copies are said to contain between 155 and 157 copperplate engravings (approximately 124 full-page plates and 31 maps or charts). However, collectors sometimes added "extra-illustrations" from other sources or moved plates around for a particular binding, which is why some descriptions record up to 220 illustrations while others list closer to 150. This copy contains about 130 plates and charts; Lacking: Cap't Cook Portrait & Death Plate, Folding Map, as well as one page of the instructions to the binder. Overall a sound and very handsomely bound copy.