A very good copy of this charming and popular French account of various voyages for children. As the title suggests, most of the material here is taken directly from the voyages of Captain Cook. The three fine and large folding engraved plates, all after Webber, respectively depict a Maōri war canoe, a walrus hunt and a Tahitian human sacrifice.

A very good copy of this charming and popular French account of various voyages for children. As the title suggests, most of the material here is taken directly from the voyages of Captain Cook. The three fine and large folding engraved plates, all after Webber, respectively depict a Maōri war canoe, a walrus hunt and a Tahitian human sacrifice.

There were a number of juvenile editions based on Jean-Pierre Bérenger's popular collections of voyage accounts which first appeared in 1780. Bérenger was a Swiss polymath; politically active, he was exiled from Geneva and spent much of his adult life in Lausanne. He wrote several important books on geography and the voyages to the Pacific. This Paris publication, largely devoted to the voyages of Cook, has chapters describing Tahiti, New Zealand, Unalaska, and the Sandwich Islands, followed by an abridged life of the navigator. Forbes records two editions published in Avignon (370 & 495 in the Hawaiian National Bibliography) but did not note this edition, although the second volume includes a lengthy section, some fifty pages, devoted to Hawaii.