Captain James Cook
The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery
Edited from the Original Manuscripts by J.C. Beaglehole
Beaglehole's classic edition of Cook's original manuscript journals, originally published by the Hakluyt Society, has for too long been out of print. The text of the journals provides the reliable and authoritative narrative of Cook's three voyages, and its republication has been as warmly welcomed as was the original edition when it appeared in 1968.
Four volumes, large octavo (234 x 156 mm.), and portfolio (377 x 248 mm.), over 4000 pages, maps and illustrations; 68 charts and views in a separate portfolio; bound in cloth.
NOW OUT OF PRINT
Australian: $2500 (Approx. US $2254, Euro €1734)
ISBN 9780851157443
About the Book
Beaglehole's famous edition of Cook's journals, originally published by the Hakluyt Society but long out of print, is at last available again. The substantial volumes contain Cook's own day-by-day descriptions of his three great voyages of discovery; introductions and detailed notes accompany the texts, providing necessary identifications and references, and giving additional information from other sources supplementing Cook's account. More extended extracts from the journals of Cook's shipmates are printed as appendices. A separate portfolio contains the manuscript charts and views drawn by Cook and his officers, which he regarded as an essential complement to his Journals. This is an essential source for the historian or voyage-enthusiast: Beaglehole's monumental work of scholarship stands as one of the greatest achievements in voyage history.
Reviews
Review 1.
Endeavour Lines, The Newsletter of the Captain Cook Study Unit - Australia, Number 35, October 2000
The Journals of Captain James Cook
Edited by J.C. Beaglehole
Reissued by arrangement with the Hakluyt Society
This classic edition of Cooks journals, taken from the original manuscripts and providing a reliable and authoritative text, has been unavailable for some years, and its reissue will be warmly and widely welcomed. The volumes contain Cook's accounts of his three great voyages of discovery in the Endeavour, the Resolution and the Discovery. Introductions and detailed notes accompany the texts, providing necessary identifications and references, and giving additional information from other sources supplementing Cooks account. More extended extracts from the journals of Cooks shipmates are printed as appendices. A separate portfolio contains the manuscript charts and views drawn by Cook and his officers, which he regarded as an essential complement to his journals.
Review 2.
International Journal of Maritime History
Volume XIII, Number 1 (June 2001)
Review by Jane Samson, University of Alberta
Reprinted by kind permission of the International Journal of Maritime History.
The recent death of W. Kaye Lambe underlined the passing of a generation of editors of whom John Cawte Beaglehole is probably the best known. For historians of exploration, Beaglehole's editions of Cook's journals represented a turning point in the discipline. Before 1955, when the first volume was published, scholars were faced with assorted printed versions, many of which featured considerable editorial meddling. Research travel was often required before first editions could be consulted. Beaglehole's great achievement was the production of a meticulously edited version at a price that libraries (and private individuals) could afford. They quickly went out of print, and now command upwards of £1000 per set.
Beaglehole's volumes were extensively reviewed at the time of their original publication, and the Boydell Press reprints are duplicates in every respect. Rather than write a conventional review, therefore, it might be more profitable to reflect on Beaglehole's place in the changing world of Cook scholarship. The general preface to the original series, written in 1954 by the President of the Hakluyt Society, mentioned 'the piety which a New Zealander owes to the virtual discoverer of his islands', and Beaglehole himself wrote that 'Cook's competence changed the face of the world.' There is no doubt that Beaglehole saw Cook as an heroic figure. Today's academics are just as likely to see him as the herald of destructive changes: epidemics, guns, and colonialism. Literary specialists scour the journals for evidence of racism and imperial power, and anthropologists point out the many ways in which Cook misunderstood the words and actions of Native peoples. Heroism is mentioned only for the purposes of deconstruction. A comparison of the 1978 'Captain Cook and his Times' conference with the 1992 'Vancouver Conference on Exploration and Discovery' reveals how much the field of exploration history and multi-disciplinary research. And in the wake of postmodernism, with its allergy to empirical research and argument, the lot of editors has itself become controversial. What is the point of archival research, and of careful annotation and presentation, if there is no such thing as historical evidence? The reprinting of Beaglehole's editions might seem a quixotic exercise in such a climate.
To me, much of the current criticism of 'conventional' historians like Beaglehole seems hypocritical. A glance at the bibliographies of works on Cook published in recent years reveals a plethora of references to Beaglehole's work. His empirical skills were what made his volumes so reliable. There is no doubt that Beaglehole's own interpretation of the material is under debate; one of the 1997 Journal of Pacific History International Essay Prizes was won by a paper exploring Beaglehole's neglect of Cook's colleagues and supporters. The publication of a host of journals and correspondence by Cook's contemporaries has made such revision much easier than it would have been in Beaglehole's day. But there should be no doubt about the value of Beaglehole's editions of the texts. In other words, current analysis relies on Beaglehole's editions of the texts. In other words, current analysis relies on Beaglehole and his generation even as it derides them for their 'old-fashioned' scholarship. The Wordsworth Classics choice of the 1906 Everyman edition of Cook simply underlines the superiority of Beaglehole's version; the antiquated language and bowdlerisation of the Everyman text makes it unsuitable for either general or scholarly readers. Because copies of the original Beaglehole editions are so expensive, and the abridged version by Glyndwr Williams is available only through the Folio Society, there was a clear case for a reprint. It will now be easier for scholars to benefit from the labours of one of maritime history's most indefatigable editors.