HAWKESWORTH, John

An Account of the Voyages...

> Klicken Sie hier, um das Bild in voller Größe zu betrachten.

W. Strahan and T. Cadell London, 1773. Three volumes, quarto, with 51 engraved charts and plates (most folding); a very handsome set in contemporary full calf, spines gilt in compartments, double red & green labels, expertly rebacked. A very handsome set of the first edition: 'an indispensable part of a series of Cook's voyages. The first edition is preferred for its plates' (Sabin).

This is the official account of Cook's great first voyage into the Pacific, during the course of which he discovered and charted the entire east coast of Australia, naming it New South Wales. Cook's voyage occupies the second and third volumes, while the first contains the accounts of the voyages of Byron, Wallis and Carteret; Hawkesworth's compendium thus contains the cream of eighteenth-century English exploration in the Pacific Ocean. It was edited from Cook's journals by the professional writer John Hawkesworth.

On first glance, this 1773 compendium of sea voyages to the Pacific might seem an unusual inclusion here, but this work, in particular Hawkesworth's account of Captain Carteret's visit to Pitcairn Island in 1767 had a critical role in the drama of the mutineers. Fletcher Christian's first plan had been to settle in Tubuai, but his two visits to the island convinced him that the local inhabitants were not keen on the idea. John Adams would later tell both Shillibeer and Beechey (see catalogue nos. XXX and XXX) that Christian, who had not only taken over Bligh's cabin, but just as importantly his library, relied on the Carteret account to guide his choice of Pitcairn as a remote and, importantly, uninhabited island. As events transpired, his choice was particularly lucky for the mutineers, as Carteret's charting of the island placed it some 200 miles of its actual location (one of the reasons for Cook's failure to sight the island in July 1773).

Shillibeer's comment on the Bligh/Christian copy of Hawkesworth is worth quoting, if for no other reason than the probably forlorn hope that their copy might one day surface: 'Several books belonging to Captain Bligh which were taken out of the Bounty were then in the possession of Adams, and the first voyage of Captain Cook (that is, Hawkesworth) was brought on board the Briton. In the title page of each volume the name of Captain Bligh was written, and I suppose in his own writing. Christian had written his name immediately under it without running his pen through, or defacing in the least, that of Captain Bligh's.' Shillibeer also comments that as with the set of the third voyage in the Admiralty Library and liberally annotated by Bligh, this copy also had extensive marginalia, but he modestly refrains from quoting any.

It is not known which edition Bligh carried. This set is bound with the "Directions for Placing the Cuts and Charts", but without the "Chart of the Streight of Magellan". According to Holmes, this particular combination signifies a slightly later issue of the first edition (the work was first printed in June 1773, and again in August of the same year).
Beddie, 650; Borba de Moraes, p. 395; Hill, 783; Holmes, 5 (n); Kroepelien, 535 (n).

• AUD 24,500.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: 602_364

• Antiquariat: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)