Sydney Parkinson: Artist of Cook's Endeavour Voyage. Carr, D. J. 1983

Sydney Parkinson: Artist of Cook's Endeavour Voyage. Carr, D. J. 1983

Carr, D.J. (ed).
Sydney Parkinson: Artist of Cook's Endeavour Voyage.
Croom Helm with the British Museum (Natural History).
1983.


This is a de-luxe book, and sufficient superlatives and colourful adjectives cannot be found to describe it.

Everything is included in this large volume in the way of explanatory texts which accompany over 250 plates, nearly all of them executed by Parkinson as original drawings and paintings. The chapters correspond to the main areas in which discoveries were made. Much of the original material is still available for inspection at the British Museum (Natural History). A substantial proportion of the plates are in full colour, and included with them is information about the current whereabouts of the original material.

Expensive? Yes. But well worth saving up for a feat of illustration; a treasure to keep that will delight all those interested in the Natural History background of the First Voyage.


Paul Capper


Originally published in Cook's Log, page 410, volume 9, number 1 (1986).

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