First edition of this important collection of voyages, largely relating to Australia and the South. Seas. The last two volumes contain an account of Cook's first voyage round the world, mostly based on Cook's own journal and that of Sydney Parkinson, the official artist who died during the course of the voyage. Other voyages described in the collection include those of Drake, Cavendish, Cowley, Dampier, Edward Cooke, Rogers, Clipperton and Shelvocke, Anson, Byron, Wallis, Carteret and Bougainville, while the long Appendix contains the Journal of a Voyage to the North Pole by Phipps.

First edition of this important collection of voyages, largely relating to Australia and the South. Seas. The last two volumes contain an account of Cook's first voyage round the world, mostly based on Cook's own journal and that of Sydney Parkinson, the official artist who died during the course of the voyage. Other voyages described in the collection include those of Drake, Cavendish, Cowley, Dampier, Edward Cooke, Rogers, Clipperton and Shelvocke, Anson, Byron, Wallis, Carteret and Bougainville, while the long Appendix contains the Journal of a Voyage to the North Pole by Phipps.

The early 1770s were a most important and prolific period for the English explorers, and the date of publication of this collection coincides with one of the high points for the London publishers of travel accounts. As a result, several of the narratives in this collection are of particular interest as being strictly contemporary accounts rather than later abridgements by hack-writers. The Cook material, for instance, is published here in the same year as the official account itself of the voyage first appeared; the same is true for the accounts of Wallis and Carteret, while Bougainville's description of his remarkable circumnavigation and the discovery of Tahiti appeared for the first time in English only the previous year. The narrative of Phipps's "Voyage to the North Pole" did not appear independently until a year after publication here.

The two most important English expeditions to Australia — Dampier and Cook, respectively the first Englishman to reach Australia, and the discoverer of the east coast — are fully treated here, and the collection as a whole gives a clear picture of English activities in the South Seas with Australia as the central achievement.

"Henry was for many years a voluminous contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine. This set of collected voyages is introduced by an admirable summary of all the voyages, undertaken for discovery only, in both the southern and northern hemispheres in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The work is especially important for its inclusion of the early circumnavigators who had not published their own accounts…" (Hill).