Captain Cook's World: Maps of the Life and Voyages of James Cook R.N.
Australian History Reference Antiquarian & Collectible Biography Naval History Maritime Exploration Historical Cartography
Captain Cook’s World: Maps of the Life and Voyages of James Cook R.N. is the 2000 first-edition hardcover that map-lovers and Cook collectors keep on the “must-own” shelf. Author John Robson—librarian and president of the Captain Cook Society—pairs more than 140 meticulously redrawn charts, coastal profiles and harbour plans with a concise, voyage-by-voyage narrative. The result is a cartographic biography: every sheet Cook ever penned is shown in crisp, modern line-work so you can watch the Pacific fill in from blank parchment to fully fledged trade routes. Collectors prize the oversize 210 mm format and the still-bright dust jacket that Random House Australia produced only once; copies in any condition are now scarce, and this vintage copy is complete, tight and unmarked inside.
What makes the book especially appealing is its double life as reference and art piece. Open anywhere and you see Cook’s progress—Newfoundland, Tahiti, New Zealand, the Barrier Reef, Hawaii—laid out on facing pages so you can compare the original survey against a modern map. Detailed captions explain why a one-degree error in longitude once meant the difference between safe water and shipwreck, while side-bars quote Cook’s journals so you hear the man himself wrestling with unknown coastlines. For students of Australian history, this is the clearest visual demonstration of how the Endeavour voyage literally put the east coast on the map and changed the continent’s future overnight.
Because the volume is out of print and was never re-issued in this large illustrated form, clean copies rarely surface. This particular copy shows the predictable light foxing on the opening leaves that often afflicts Australian paper of the era, but the maps themselves are unaffected, the binding is square, and there are no previous-owner marks or dog-eared pages. It is ready for display or daily consultation and offers an affordable entry point into antiquarian Cookiana without the four-figure price tag of a genuine 18th-century atlas.
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