Cook, Captain James--Anonymous

FIRST EDITION, 4to (294 x 234mm.), [iv], [3], 4-102pp., [ii pp. errata leaf], contemporary light speckled calf, full gilt spine, red label, gilt floral borders on the covers

Beaglehole, II, pp. clv-clvi; BCJC 245; Holmes 21; Renard 368; Sabin 16246; Hill (2004) 1545

A fine copy
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THE RAREST OF ALL THE SURREPTITIOUS ACCOUNTS OF COOK'S SECOND VOYAGE, preceding both the official account and that by Forster.

'This account, issued with a title so ambiguously phrased as to mislead the public into believing it to be Cook’s own account, was initially accepted as an authentic account but the book was so quickly exposed and denounced that very few copies of the first issue appear to have found buyers and it is extremely rare. Holmes speculates that it was suppressed by the Admiralty.' (Australian Book Auctions, 27 May 2013, lot 63)

'Following the return of the third voyage with news of Cook’s death in 1780 and the subsequent heightened public interest in Cook, the original title-leaf was cancelled and replaced by a rephrased and redated title-leaf, now attributing authorship to “An Officer on Board”. This ploy seems also to have been unsuccessful – the public was interested in the third voyage – and, consequently, that second issue is as rare as the first. Beaglehole, who is always dismissive of secondary accounts, remarks that “it recounts a few incidents, not otherwise known, which do not seem out of key with the voyage as a whole” but goes on to say that “the rest is so palpably fake, and in the most sensational terms, that it must be regarded as original invention – on the basis, perhaps, of a reading of Marra or conversation with a stray sailor...”. Georg Forster (hardly disinterested) declared that it was the work of a Cambridge undergraduate and subsequent opinion has tended to echo contemporary sentiment. Nevertheless, Renard ventures that the account derives “from the journal of one of the officers on board”, while it has even been suggested that the journal of Lieutenant Pickersgill may have been the source.' (Davidson Collection, Australian Book Auctions, 7 March 2005, lot 83)