COOK (Captain James) - HAWKESWORTH (John). - Relation...

[COOK (Captain James) - HAWKESWORTH (John).
- Relation of the voyages undertaken by order of his British Majesty, now reigning; To make Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, And successively executed by Commodore Byron, Captain Carteret, Captain Wallis & Captain Cook, in the Vessels the Dauphin, the Swallow & the Endeavour: Redigee d'apres les Journaux tenus par les differens Commandans & les Papiers de M. Banks... Paris : Saillant et Nyon, Panckoucke, 1774.
- Voyage dans l'hemisphere austral, et autour du monde, fait sur les vaisseaux de roi, l'Aventure, & la Resolution, en 1772, 1773, 1774 & 1775. Paris : Hotel de Thou, 1778.
- Cook's third voyage, or voyage to the Pacific Ocean, ordered by the King of England, To make Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere, to determine the position & extent of the West Coast of North America, its distance from Asia, & to resolve the question of the passage to the North. Executed under the direction of Captains Cook, Clerke & Gore, on the Vessels the Resolution & the Discovery in 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779 & 1780.
Paris : Hotel de Thou, 1785. - 13 volumes in-4, 256 x 200: (2 ff.), xvj pp., (1 f.), xxxij, 388 pp., 16 plates; (3 ff.), 536 pp., 16 plates; (3 ff.), 394 pp., 17 plates; (1 f.), viij, 367 pp, 3 plates (Relation); portrait, xij pp., pp. v-xliv, 460 pp., 17 plates; viij, 432 pp., 20 plates; viij, 374 pp., 21 plates; viij, 413 pp, (1 f.), 7 plates, 1 table; xij, 510 pp., (1 f.), 1 plate, 1 table (Voyage dans l'hemisphere austral); frontispiece, (4 ff.), cxxxij, 437 pp, (1 f.), 21 (of 22) plates; (2 ff.), 422 pp. 14 plates; (2 ff.), 488 pp. 32 plates; (2 ff.), 552 pp. (1 f.), 19 plates, 1 table. Marbled calf, triple cold fillet framing the boards, spine ribbed and decorated, red edges (period binding).
First French edition of Cook's three voyages. The translation of the first two was done by Suard, that of the third by Demeunier.
THE LAST VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY AND THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION.
James Cook, famous English navigator, made a very important contribution to the knowledge of the Pacific thanks to his numerous hydrographic surveys, revealing the existence of an oceanic hemisphere.
During his first expedition, from 1768 to 1771, he discovered the archipelago of the Society Islands, New Zealand and the eastern coasts of Australia, which until then had been included in the hypothetical southern continent. In 1772, during his second voyage, he visited the Marquesas Islands, the New Hebrides and New Caledonia. The last expedition, from 1776 to 1779, aimed to find a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the north of the American continent. He succeeded in reaching the Bering Strait, but on his return to the Sandwich Islands, discovered earlier, he was killed by natives on February 14, 1779. He collected the most precise and complete observations on the countries he visited.
The first book contains the relation of the first four British circumnavigations, by the explorers John Byron (1723-1786), Samuel Wallis (1728-1795), Philip Carteret (1733-1796) and James Cook (1728-1779). It was composed by the English writer John Hawkesworth (1715-1773), who had been commissioned to make a synthesis of these relations, following numerous illicit publications.
The last volume of the second voyage contains an interesting "Vocabulary of the language of the islands of society", an extract from the Astronomical Observations of Wales and Bayly and finally a speech on the health of the seafarers and the medicines used during Cook's second voyage, by Pringle.
REMARKABLE AND FAMEOUS ILLUSTRATION ENGRAVED ON COPPER INCLUDING HERE A PORTRAIT AND 205 PLATES (out of 206), many folding: maps, fauna, flora, genre scenes, customs, antiquities, weapons, etc. This famous iconography revealed to the Western world, for the first time, some exotic types. There are also three folding tables. The General Map, which shows all of Captain Cook's discoveries, is missing and should be found in the first volume of the third voyage.
Numerous rubs and scuffing to the bindings, some worm work, several title-pieces and goblets are partly detached. Lacks at the headings of the first two volumes. The first two volumes of the series have a slightly different decoration on the spine than the others. Several plates are unbound. Small wormholes in the upper margin of the last 4 leaves of volume 3 of the second voyage.