Captain Cook's three voyages of discovery, which took place between 1768 and 1779, are among the most remarkable achievements in the history of exploration.During these long and arduous voyages Cook charted with astonishing accuracy vast areas of the Pacific Ocean from the coasts of New Zealand and Eastern Australia and the myriad islands of the South Pacific to the Arctic regions of America and Russia in the Bering Sea and beyond. The voyages also made a significant contribution towards solving some of the great puzzles and problems of cartography and navigation. With crews containing gifted sailors and navigators, as well as botanists, painters and scientists, Cook provides the link between the speculative, profit-hungry voyages of the Elizabethan seafarers and the scientific expeditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Why read Captain Cook?

James Cook, like Tennyson"s Ulysses, has "become a name’Captain Cook - the indefatigable navigator and explorer who tirelessly charted the unknown and perilous regions of the Pacific,who during Britain"s great period of colonial expansion was engaged on the more ideologically neutral task of "discovery’and who died in the service of scientific enquiry. His actual achievements, like the islands he visited, have often been shrouded in some mystery. Did he really discover Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii? Was he responsible for finding a cure for scurvy? How did the unassuming son of a Yorkshire labourer become a model for Victorian imperialists……

Introduction

Further Reading

Note on the Text

FIRST VOYAGE

SECOND VOYAGE

THIRD VOYAGE