The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery : Five Volumes in Four and Portfolio [offered with] Cook and the Russians by BEAGLEHOLE, J.C. (editor) - 1974

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. First Thus. [CHARLES BATESON'S COPY] Hardcover : Volume I The Voyage of the Endeavour 1768-1771: pp. (2) [iv] cclxxxiv [cclxxxvi] [1] 696 : 45 illustrations and maps; Volume II The Voyage of the Resolution and Adventure, 1772-1775 : [2 blank] (4) clxx [3] 1028 : 82 illustrations and maps; Volume III The Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery, 1776-1780, Part One : [iv] ccxxiv [3] 718 [720] : 68 illustrations and 13 sketch maps; Volume III Part Two : [iv] viii [723] 724 - 1647 : a further 10 illustrations and maps and three more sketch maps; Volume IV The Life of Captain James Cook : [iv] xi [xii] 760 : colour frontispiece to each volume : reprinted with addenda and corrigenda : portfolio containing reproductions of original charts and views drawn on three voyages : all in blue buckram with Cook's portrait in gilt to top boards, gilt lettering to spines and paper dust jackets; Cook and the Russians : 9pp in soft blue wraps. Volumes 1-3 with Charles Bateson's signature to the free endpaper. Comes with original paper enveloped for Charts & Views - the charts have been removed from the paper wrap and now in mylar in the blue buckram folder.

Interior of folder and title page of Charts & Views foxed; minor foxing to e.p. s of the volumes; corners bumped on Vol III Part One and Vol IV; light edgewear and sunning to spines of unclipped jackets. For decades John Cawte Beaglehole's work on Captain Cook's voyages has remained unsurpassed and many subsequent biographies of Cook have been viewed as abbreviated versions of Beaglehole's erudite and witty scholarship. Perhaps the one mild criticism Beaglehole will bear is that he was an enormous fan of Cook's and was subsequently particularly scathing of any of Cook's contemporaries that criticised him - notably Alexander Dalrymple the geographer and Joesph Reinhard Forster. Recent scholarship has gone some way towards rehabilitating both these men, but Beaglehole remains the gold standard in Cook scholarship.

Charles Bateson was an Australian maritime historian. His collection of 1300 books and his personal papers were acquired by the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales after his death in 1974.