The Art of Captain Cook's Voyages. Vol. I: The Voyage of the Endeavour 1768-1771; Vol. II: The Voyage of Resolution & Endeavour 1772-1775;

Vol. III (text) & Vol. III (catalogue): The Voyage of Resolution & Discovery 1776-1780

Complete set, in first editions, of the splendid and authoritative analysis of the graphic record of Cook's three voyages, by the two great experts in the field, Rüdiger Joppien and Bernard Smith. The work quickly sold out and it was re-published in 1988.

On each of his three voyages of exploration Cook employed professional artists to record his discoveries. The exotic plants, animals, peoples and places which they sketched provided an important and thrilling record, and many of their images would later become the basis of the famous engraved plates which adorn the official voyage accounts. This authoritative account encompasses the work of both the professional and amateur artists on Cook's voyages. Each of the voyages gets a separate volume - the particularly important third voyage merits two because of the wealth of material still extant. The volumes include a critical appraisal of the three main artists (Parkinson for the first voyage, Hodges for the second, and Webber for the third). Additionally, the work of amateur artists involved in these undertakings is also discussed and reproduced in detail, with entries on figures such as Herman Spöring, Henry Roberts, and William Ellis.

The set as a whole contains some 1288 plates, many of them in colour.