COOK, James, Capt. (1728–1779) and James KING (c. 1750–1784). A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean; Undertaken by the Command of his Majesty for making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere. London: for John Stockdale, [et al], 1784.
4 volumes, 8vo (214 x 131 mm). Half titles, 2 folding charts (one large), 49 engraved plates including the portrait frontispiece of Cook in Volume I (one folding; “The Death of Captain James Cook” after a drawing by D.P. Dodd). (Few small repairs to large folding chart verso, some offsetting from plates to text). Early calf with single gilt border on covers, neatly rebacked gilt (repairs at corners, front hinge cracked in Volume I at a1, renewed endpapers). Provenance: Edward Synge (armorial bookplate); Albert Samuel Heywood (bookplate).
FIRST OCTAVO EDITION, and the first abridged account of Cook’s third voyage that is “preferred by some readers because, the nautical and technical parts having been deleted, the work reads more like an adventure” (Hill). Cook’s third voyage was to seek the Northwest Passage but instead resulted in what Cook judged his most valuable (but fatal) discovery on 18 January 1778 – the Sandwich Islands (today known as the Hawaiian Islands). Cook would then chart the American west coast from Northern California through the Bering Strait before being stopped by pack ice. He would return to Hawaii almost a year later only to be killed by the once friendly natives. Beddie, Mitchell Library 1545; Forbes 69; Hill 362; Holmes 47 (first quarto edition); Sabin 16251.