2. Cook and His Contemporaries 1

This was Captain James Cook’s first voyage, undertaken during the years 1768 to 1771. Cook’s brief was to travel to the South Seas to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti and to chart the waters between Cape Horn and New Holland. He circumnavigated New Zealand and charted some of the east coast of Australia. This account proved so popular that it ran to two editions in 1773; however, Cook was criticised by Alexander Dalrymple for not searching out the Great South Land.

Parkinson was a draftsman assigned to Joseph Banks on the Endeavour voyage. His is the first published account, but it was unauthorised. The book is remarkable for the quality of its engravings and the first mention of the kangaroo by name. Parkinson died from dysentery on the return voyage to England and an unfortunate dispute ensued between his brother, Stanfield, and Banks over the ownership of specimens and drawings from the voyage, a situation alluded to by the Gomeldon addition included in this copy. Some copies of Parkinson’s account have handcoloured plates, but it is unlikely that these were part of the original publication.

On 18 January 1788, Governor Phillip arrived at Botany Bay with the First Fleet. This published account of the foundation of Australia was not official, although it was compiled from the governor’s journals and papers. As well as descriptions and engravings of Indigenous peoples and natural history, the names of more than 700 First Fleet convicts were included.

Viages de Enrique Wanton was first published in Venice in 1749. This copy is the expanded Spanish translation by Joaquin de Guzman y Manrique that first appeared in 1764. The book claims to have been translated from an English manuscript, but it never appeared in English. The story shows influences of Swift, revealing his impact on the continent. It is written in the Venetian genre of the fantastic in which two Englishmen bound for adventure in Bengal are shipwrecked on an unidentified south land where a society of monkeys live in European fashion. It begins as a satirical commentary on Venetian society but the later two volumes also satirise Spanish manners and customs.

Langley and Belch published many writing blanks and chapbooks in the early years of the 19th century, primarily ‘for the instruction of youth’. In this chapbook, the life of Charles Henry Copeland serves as a didactic narrative, warning young men of the dangers of seeking adventure on the seas. Each time he ventures out, he meets with failure, first shipwrecked on his way to Guinea and then taken prisoner by French privateers en route to the Coast of Calabar. He finds happiness and success when he returns home.