A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Undertaken by the Command of His Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere. To Determine the Position and Extent of the West Side of North America; its Distance from Asia; and the Practicability of a Northern Passage to Europe. Performed Under the Direction of Captains Cook, Clerke, and Gore, in His Majesty's Ships the Resolution and Discovery. In the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780. In Three Volumes. Illustrated with Maps and Charts, from the Original Drawings Made by Lieut. Henry Roberts, Under the Direction of Captain Cook. Published by Order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Dublin: Printed for H. Chambbrlaine, et al., MDCCLXXXIV (1784), 8vo.
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The first Dublin edition, printed the same year as the first edition in London. A very rare printing. This is volumes one and two of the original three only, the third was not written by Cook but by James King, and so here we find Cook's complete work. The plates/maps are almost always lacking, but in these volumes are present and so this is a lovely set, contemporaneously bound.
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Size: 142 x 223 mm (approx., each)
Condition:
[t.p., 6pp. (contents), i-xcii (introduction), xciii-xcv (dedication), xcvii-xcviii (List of Plates), 421pp.]; [t.p., 12pp. (contents), 549pp.]
Full brown calf with simple gilt borders to boards and with red and black tooled labels to spines in compartments between raised bands. Volumes one and two only, lacking volume three. Bindings rubbed and scuffed with some losses to the backstairs and tooled labels. Shelf and edge wear. Lacking both head caps and the tailcap of volume one. Shelf lean but both volumes remain upright. Spotted page edges dulled and toned. Ink stains to the bottom page edge of volume one, seeping to the rear pastedown and last few leaves; and some smaller ink stains to the page edge of both volumes. No attached bookplates. Pencil inscription to the front pastedown of volume one. Small ink stain to the reverse of the title page and the first page of the contents in volume one. Text blocks very clean with light toning and occasional foxing, few pages more toned and foxed than others. Some plates slightly torn at the edges and/or hinges. Seventeen of the twenty plates are present as well as an extra plate facing pp.83, where there are two plates compared to the one listed on the List of Plates; lacking plates facing pp.1 in volume one, pp.51 in volume one, and 530 in volume two. Pp.471 in volume two misnumbumred as 741. Lacking front and rear blanks in both volumes. Tear to pp.495/496 in volume two with some loss of sense.
