NEW DISCOVERIES

New Discoveries Concerning the World and its Inhabitants.

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J. Johnson, London, 1778. Octavo, with two folding plates and two folding maps; old quarter pebblegrain cloth and marbled boards, spine and edges rubbed but a very good copy. First edition of this early compendium of information about Australia, New Zealand and the South Seas. The accounts of Cook's first two voyages are assembled from a variety of sources, including Hawkesworth, Parkinson, Forster and Cook himself. This gives a good overall picture of the voyages, while the material on the second voyage in particular, published during Cook's absence on the third voyage and before any news of his death, is of a good early date.

The various discoveries in the South Seas, and especially those of Cook, are put into a context of particular significance for Australia, by comparison with the voyages of Mendana, Quiros, Tasman, Le Maire, Schouten, Dampier, Roggeveen and others. One of the engravings bears more than a passing resemblance to the celebrated Dufour panorama, the printed French wallpaper which illustrates Cook's and others' discoveries; in the plate here, a marvellous composite of people, places and animals discovered in the South Seas, we see a "Kangaroo" and a "Woman of New Holland", as well as "A Canoe of O-Taheitee" which, defying climate, is separated from Endeavour only by 'A Floating Ice-Island, numbers of which were seen towards the Southern Frigid Zone'. The Tahitian Chief Mourner enters at right.
Beddie, 9, 1220, 1297; Hill, p. 210; Kroepelien, 893.

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• Bestellnummer: 804_623

• Antiquariat: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)