Known twentieth century books
Eighteenth century books
below
Voyages of Captain James Cook 1999
Endeavour: the story of Captain Cook's first great epic voyage Aughton, Peter. 1999
The Journals of Captain Cook Edwards, Philip. 1999
The Voyages of Captain Cook Barrow, John. 1999
The Adventurous Captain Cook: the life and voyages of James Cook, R.N., F.R.S. Snowden, Keith. 1999
Cook's sites: revisiting history Adams, Mark and Thomas, Nicholas. 1999
Pacific Empires: Essays in honour of Glyndwr Williams Frost, Alan and Samson, Jane. 1999
The Legacy of James Cook: The story of the Bay of Islands Harley, Brian J.S. 199?.
On Stormy Seas: The Triumphs and Torments of Captain George Vancouver Gillespie, B. Guild. 1992
By Eleanor Nordyke, published by Hawaiian Historical Society in 1999 (ISBN 0-945048-04-1).
The book reproduces all 61 engraved plates, made from John Webber's drawings, and three maps, published in the rare folio atlas accompanying the official report, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1784). Also included is the engraving of Cook's death added to the 1785 second edition of the atlas. The pictures are linked with their appropriate entries from the original text of the journals kept by Cook and his officers. Eleanor has added an introduction and biographical sketches of artist John Webber and the 25 engravers who rendered his drawings.
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1682, volume 22, number 4 (1999).
Published by Curzon Press in 1999 (ISBN 0-7007-1149-X).
A facsimile of the published accounts of Cook's three voyages at the original quarto size and including the folio atlas. They comprise:
The three volumes by John Hawkesworth and published in 1773 under the title "An Account of the Voyages undertaken by order of his present Majesty for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, And successively performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, And Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: drawn up from the Journals which were kept by the several Commanders, And from the Papers of Joseph Banks Esq".
The two volumes by Cook and published in 1777 as "A Voyage towards the South Pole and Round the World, Performed in His Majesty's Ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the Years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775".
The three volumes and atlas by Cook and King and published in 1784 as "A Voyage towards the Pacific Ocean, Undertaken by the Command of His Majesty, for making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere. To determine the Position and Extent of the West Side of North America; its distance from Asia; and the Practicability of a Northern Passage to Europe. Performed under the direction of Captains Cook, Clerke and Gore, In His Majesty's Ships the Resolution and Discovery. In the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779 and 1780".
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1682, volume 22, number 4 (1999).
By Peter Aughton, published by Windrush Press in 1999 (ISBN 1900624303).
The Wordsworth edition of the Voyages can be considered first. Barrow's work has been published on many occasions since its first appearance early this century and has now appeared in a compact paperback edition, complete with a short, new introduction. Given its cheap price, it is still a good starting point for someone wanting to learn about Cook.
Reviewer: John Robson
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1694, volume 23, number 1 (2000).
Selected and edited by Philip Edwards, published by Penguin in 1999 (ISBN 0140436472).
Philip Edwards' book is a more ambitious work. He has taken Beaglehole's editions of the original journals of Cook and edited them further so that they fill only 650 pages of a Penguin Classic. Edwards is to be congratulated and commended for what he has achieved as his selection of passages is excellent and he has provided links and infills where no Cook piece has been included. Furthermore, he has written a general introduction and each voyage has its own new introduction. The end of the book is also excellent, comprising a glossary, separate indexes of persons and of places and a set of good, little maps. All in all, it lives up to its billing as a Penguin Classic. Anyone unable to afford Beaglehole's works will be more than satisfied with this work.
I believe it will be a classic.
Reviewer: John Robson
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1694, volume 23, number 1 (2000).
Edited by John Barrow, published by Wordsworth in 1999 (ISBN 1840221003).
A read of the first few pages throws up plenty of glaring mistakes and gives the reader little or no confidence about what follows. For example, Cook met Samuel Holland at Gabarus Bay, Nova Scotia, not Newfoundland; Cook was not involved in the choice of the Endeavour; Marton is not in the Yorkshire Dales. The puff on the cover does not help matters as it seeks to sensationalise aspects of the voyage, especially the secret instructions about Terra Australis Incognita. The first voyage deserves a good reworking and telling; this book is not it.
Reviewer: John Robson
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1694, volume 23, number 1 (2000).
By Keith Snowden, published by Castleden Publications in 1999 (ISBN 0952754843).
A small self-published book, it adds nothing to our knowledge of Cook.
Reviewer: John Robson
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1694, volume 23, number 1 (2000).
By Mark Adams and Nicholas Thomas, published by University of Otago Press in 1999 (ISBN 1877133825).
In 1992, Bernard Smith, the eminent Art Historian, published the sequel to his classic work European Vision and the South Pacific called Imagining the Pacific. In this vein, the book under review, Cook's sites could easily be retitled Re-imagining the Pacific (or at least New Zealand).
Cook's Sites is a handsome work and part of a growing number of books examining the impact of culture contact on both participants. In this case, it was between the visiting British ships under Captain James Cook and the local Maori people who inhabited the islands now known as New Zealand. The book examines the effects, both as they occurred at the time and in the longer-term.
Captain Cook visited New Zealand (Aotearoa) on several occasions between 1769 and 1776. On his First Voyage, he circum-navigated both the main islands making landfall and contact with the local people at several locations but finding a favoured spot at the northern end of Te Wai Pounamu (South Island), which he called Queen Charlotte Sound (Totaranui). He would return to this location on both his subsequent voyages.
In 1773, he returned to New Zealand on his Second Voyage, and having just spent several weeks in the extreme cold of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, he was keen to land at the first possible opportunity. Approaching from the southwest, Cook brought HMS Resolution into Dusky Sound, an inlet on Te Wai Pounamu that he had been reluctant to investigate on his First Voyage. He would stay here several weeks.
Cook's Sites concentrates on the visits Cook made to Dusky Sound and to Queen Charlotte Sound and examines the impact that the visits made on all concerned. The book, though, is two, loosely connected, parts running in parallel, in which Nicholas Thomas has written the text and Mark Adams has taken marvellous photographs.
Thomas has used passages from the journals of persons on board Cook's ships including Cook himself, Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg, Joseph Banks and James Burney. He has then proceeded to reinterpret the events, the sites and encounters from a present day perspective.
The other part of the book, and by far, the better part, comprises photographs taken by Adams. He has set out to show, through a number of beautiful black and white panoramic landscape photographs, the locations visited by Cook and recorded by the artists on Cook's ships. Several of the paintings by William Hodges (Second Voyage) and John Webber (Third Voyage) are included in the book for comparison.
Sadly, even though this book is slightly larger than A4, many of the photographs are spread over three or four sides, and the book cannot always do them justice. Even so, the photographs are splendid, especially of Dusky Sound, which, given its isolation, has hardly changed from the time Cook visited. It is interesting that the works by Hodges, used here for comparison, are those that Hodges reworked into paintings back in Europe. The more evocative wash seascapes that he painted as the ship entered and left the Sound are not reproduced.
The Voyages of Cook were notable for being among the first in which artifacts and zoological and botanical specimens were collected to be taken back to Europe. In Europe, they were dispersed into Museums and other private collections throughout the continent. The last part of Cook's Sites deals with this dispersal, specifically to Museums and Libraries in Oxford, Kew, Berlin and Gottingen, and it is the most disappointing part of the book. Photographs of the interiors of some of the buildings, which house Cook-derived specimens are not very effective and add little or nothing to the work. The parallel text by Thomas about the authors' visits is brief and, again, adds very little. A book entitled James Cook: gifts and treasures from the South Seas, edited by Hauser-Schaublin and published in 1998, deals in a more informative way with the Cook material in one particular Museum at Gottingen. See the on-line review
The book, through its photographs and pieces of text, prompts the reader to think about the locations and re-imagine the events that took place 200 years ago. It mostly succeeds and overall Cook's Sites is a very welcome addition to the Cook and New Zealand library.
Reviewer: John Robson
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1695, volume 23, number 1 (2000).
Edited by Alan Frost and Jane Samson, published by Melbourne University Press in 1999 (ISBN 0 522 84791 9).
Glyn Williams has established himself as a world authority on the history of European exploration and culture contact, especially that of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. This book is a series of chapters by scholars concerned with these subjects and how our understanding of them have developed over recent years. Of the 13 contributions, three have direct connections with Cook, and others touch on him indirectly.
The first chapter is by Glyn himself, being a reprint of a lecture he gave in 1995 and published in Mariner's Mirror in 1996. 'To Make Discoveries of Countries Hitherto Unknown': The Admiralty and Pacific Exploration in the Eighteenth Century is an explanation of why and how the Admiralty sent ships to explore "for the discovery of unknown & unsettled Parts of the World" despite Spain's view that she had exclusive rights there. Narborough, Dampier, Middleton, Anson, Byron, Wallis, Carter and Cook are all covered. Glyn notes that a book about Bougainville's voyage was published before any consideration had been given to those of Byron, etc. He also shows how the Admiralty's attention turned "from exploration to exploitation".
Andrew Cook in Alexander Dalrymple and the Hydrogaphic Office describes how Dalrymple became the first Hydrographer of Britain in 1795. His connection to Cook is not explored, except to say that he "was closely involved in the engraving of the plans and illustrations to accompany the publication in 1784 of the account of Cook's third voyage".
Greg Dening in The Hegemony of Laughter: Purea's Theatre considers Oberea's influence on Wallis and Cook, and the results of her "'machiavellian' ambitions" which led to her downfall. Though "she seemed to have died somewhere between 1775 and 1785" she lived on as a character in a pantomime in London.
The last chapter is by David Mackay. Exploring the Pacific, exploring James Cook considers the Hawaiian "tradition stretching to the first half of the nineteenth century which portrays Cook as a figure of oppression. This view was perpetuated by American missionary writers and identified by Beaglehole". For many Europeans, though, "he has been portrayed in a heroic mould; representing a fine, stoic, stern but also compassionate agent of empire." Mackay considers the recent biography by Richard Hough to be "both patronising and ignorant about Pacific peoples" and the effect Cook had in New Zealand both in 1769 and now, ad concludes that "the Pacific is still in the process of discovering Captain James Cook."
During his life Glyn has "edited narratives of exploration; produced atlases of exploration; and written analytical studies, both of where explorers went, and what they saw - or thought they saw." It is fitting that a bibliography of his writings is included in this excellent book.
Reviewer: Ian Boreham
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1737, volume 23, number 2 (2000).
By Brian J.S. Harley, published by Harkin Enterprises Ltd. in 199? (ISBN 0-9684476-0-0).
The opening sentence of the foreword refers to the remoteness of the west coast of Newfoundland and, having spent some time there last year, I can certainly vouch for this, but it is also a fascinating area with some wonderful scenery and some very friendly and hospitable people. Much of today's remoteness is at least accessible by road and air, and is, thus, far from that confronting James Cook when conducting his survey of the west coast in 1767.
In this, his first book, CCSU member Brian Harley, excellently describes Cook's situation in the first three chapters. This part of Cook's life has received little attention and indeed is virtually unknown to many. Brian, with forty years medical work and residence in the area of the Bay of Islands, is admirably placed to blend historic fact with a deep knowledge of the people and the country, to create for the reader an accurate reflection of Cook's work and the conditions in which he achieved success. There will be no dispute with Brian's thesis that Cook's work in the survey of Newfoundland between 1764 to 1767 was the foundation for his even greater success on his later world voyages.
The development of the Bay of Islands area and the debt owed to James Cook is however, the real story told, and the book reveals some fascinating insights to the two centuries of progress. Illustrated with drawings, maps and photographs, mainly in black and white, the story follows a good plan, though it lacks an index; has an excellent bibliography, and provides a very good, informative read.
Reviewer: Alwyn Peel
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1738, volume 23, number 2 (2000).
By B. Guild Gillespie, published by Publisher in 1992 (ISBN 0-920663-12-5).
I recently came across this book when visiting the Vancouver Maritime Museum and greatly enjoyed the read during my flight and journey home. A5 size, soft-backed, the 300 pages are written as though by the hand of John Vancouver, George's oldest brother. The book relates the life of George Vancouver, giving due attention in the early chapters to the voyages with Cook and the wisdom and skills stemming from these voyages which proved so valuable to Vancouver some years later. Naturally, the major part of the story is devoted to Vancouver's command of the Discovery and the Chatham on the expedition to North America (1790-9) in a further attempt to discover the N.W. Passage. Throughout there is the on-going feud with the Hon. Thomas Pitt (later Lord Camelford) and then the arguments with the Admiralty over pay, much of which provided the torment which led to the early death of Vancouver in 1798. The narrative flows well and interest is maintained throughout. Maps, photographs and drawings provide excellent illustration; there is a detailed bibliography and source notes, and a very useful index. An absorbing read.
Reviewer: Alwyn Peel
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1738, volume 23, number 2 (2000).