Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana

3 volumes, 4to (286 x 229 mm). 52 engraved plates, maps and charts, most folding. (Some spotting.) Contemporary calf gilt, spines in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands, red and olive morocco lettering-pieces gilt in 2, others gilt tooled (extremities rubbed, vol.2 lettering piece chipped with losses, some splitting to joints).

SECOND EDITION, CONSIDERED THE BEST, complete with the folding chart of the Straits of Magellan, often wanting.

"Cook earned his place in history by opening up the Pacific to western civilization and by the foundation of British Australia. The world was given for the first time an essentially complete knowledge of the Pacific Ocean and Australia" (PMM). Volume I contains the voyages of Byron, Carteret, and Wallis, and describes the discovery of Tahiti; volumes II-III contain Hawkesworth's edited account of Lieutenant Cook's voyage (he was only promoted to Captain on his return). Cook added more than 5,000 miles of coastline to Admiralty charts for Tahiti, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef, and New Zealand, which he circumnavigated. Hill 783; PMM 223; Sabin 30934.