Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round the World

About the book

Cook's journal follows the Endeavour voyage of 1768–1771, including the expedition to Tahiti and its subsequent work around New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia. Entries record winds, courses, soundings, coastal features, supplies, repairs, and meetings with local communities. The accumulation of practical details reveals what keeping a vessel and its people moving required, while also preserving the assumptions through which the commander interpreted unfamiliar places and peoples. This edition presents Wharton's transcription with introduction and notes, distinguishing the journal from later composite narratives of the voyage. Its value lies partly in that immediacy and partly in its limitations as one participant's record. Readers can follow the making of geographical knowledge alongside the unequal and sometimes violent encounters embedded in the expedition's progress.

• Navigation and observation
• Cross-cultural encounter
• Exploration and power

Why read it

For a daily view of an important voyage that keeps practical seamanship and the circumstances of encounter close to the resulting geographical record.

First-voyage journal, 1768–1771 · edited by W. J. L. Wharton