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Three text volumes and Atlas volume. Text Volumes: [8], xcvi, 421, [3 blank]; [12], 549; [12], 558, + [1] ad pp. Illustrated with 24 copper-engraved maps and profile views (13 folding) and a folding letterpress table. (4to) 29.5x22 cm. (11½x8½"), period tree calf, morocco lettering- and numbering-pieces, spines gilt. Atlas: With double-page chart of the route of the Third Voyage (but lacking large general chart), and 59 (of 61) copper-engraved plates, mostly after J. Webber, tissue guards. Extra-illustrated with mezzotint portraits of Cook and King. 56x39.5 cm. (22x15¼"), half-calf in period style with old marbled boards. Together, 4 volumes. First Edition.

First edition of Cook's third voyage, in which the Sandwich Islands [now Hawaiian Islands] are discovered. Cook would be killed by the initially friendly natives of Hawaii. Also, in Cook's search for the Northwest Passage, he surveyed the straits between Asia and America and ascertained the proximity between them, and there is much information on the northwest coast of North America, Alaska, Kamchatka, and other northern climes. The first two volumes were the work of Cook himself, the third was completed by Captain James King. The publication of this official account was much delayed, and, according to Holmes, "it was so eagerly awaited by the public that it was sold out on the third day after publication". Forbes declares the work to be "arguably the single most important book on the Hawaiian Islands" which "documents all aspects of Hawaiian culture at the point of discovery by Europeans. It is a magnificent summation of all the public and private journals, logs, drawings, and other observations made during the course of the voyage and is as important a record of the exploration of the North Pacific as Cook's first two voyages had been for the South Pacific." He further notes that twelve of the plates in the atlas relate to Hawaii, as do two of the charts in the text volumes. The two plates excised from the present volume were ones relating to Hawaii  (LXV, "A Canoe of the Sandwich Islands, the Rowers masked"; and  LXVI, "A Man of the Sandwich Islands in a mask"). Forbes 62; Holmes 47; Howes C729a; Lada-Mocarski 37; Sabin 16250.