Lot 137
The 1781 second release of an unauthorised account of Cook's second voyage is a re-issued remainder of the 1776 First Edition with a new title page tipped in. The new title page for the first time acknowledges the author as 'an officer on board'. A similar copy of this unofficial publication resides in the collection of the Mitchell Library (NSW) where it is described as "a surruptious account of Cook's second voyage from the journal of one of the officers (and) published anonymously a year before the official account". In the Library collection it is highlighted as an "extreme rarity". The pages are clean and in a superior state of preservation.
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Literature:
- 324 Medium:
- Collectibles Circa:
- Books, Maps & Manuscripts Notes:
- Much like the victors who largely dictate military history, it was the British Admiralty who sanctioned the official accounts of the voyages of explorers who sailed under its command. During the voyage, senior officers were expected to keep journals of their duties which often included florid detail, and so it was the common practice for these to be collected shortly before the ships returned to home port lest controversial incidents be revealed. Of course, this did not stop some officers from rushing to print with their experiences before the release of the sanitised official account which they either put together from recollection or secreted scribblings. This month Smalls Auctions offers a copy of the 1781 second release of an unauthorised account of Captain James Cook's second voyage which is a re-issued remainder of the 1776 First Edition but, with a new title page tipped in. For the first time the new title page acknowledges the author as 'an officer on board' although there is no direct clue to his identity. Perhaps in an effort to discredit a rival work, George Foster the author of a later unauthorised account of the voyage dismissed it as the work of a student of Cambridge University. However, with the level of salacious detail contained in its pages there is no doubt that it is a first-hand account with some historians suggesting that it is from the journal of Lieutenant Pickersgill of the HMS Resolution. There are no charts or illustrations just riveting passages regarding encounters with natives missing from the more sedate official accounts. For example, on page 53 the author recounts that on "November 23, Some gentlemen rowing about the shore for pleasure, pulled in at a cove and sent a boy up the land to see if he could find any greens: the boy returned soon after in a great fright, and told the Lieutenant he had seen a number of Indians feasting upon a body, and that he could distinguish the head and some entrails under a canoe. On this intelligence, the gentlemen landed and made up to the place described by the boy; where they beheld, with great horror, a company of the natives regaling themselves over the mangled body of a murdered Indian. On their approach some of them got up, and one of them presented the Lieutenant with a piece of liver and lights upon a spear and seemed rather affronted at his declining to eat it. The Lieutenant bought the head of the Indian and brought it on board. The unhappy man to whom it had belonged had been killed but a very little time, for the animal inhabitants of the hair were running about alive. The skin was torn from the forehead; there appeared many bruises on the face, the eyes were black and blue. There were two holes in the crown, and the skull appeared to have been cut under one ear, and so continued the cut round the poll of the neck to the other ear, and from thence through the mouth to where the cut began, so that the chin and lower lip were severed off. The tongue, teeth and jaw-bones were taken out. In the evening some Indians came on board the ship, and seeing the head, expressed great satisfaction, and begged of the Lieutenant to give them a part to eat: The Lieutenant complied with their request and cut them off some of the flesh, which they broiled, having first dipped it in some stinking grease, and then eat it greedily, in preference of all on board. They afterwards licked their fingers and smacked their lips, as expressing how luscious a morsel they had made. The head was afterwards put in spirits. In the night we had reason to think the Indians were murdering more of their captives, of which they said they had taken twenty, for we heard at times hideous shrieks and cries, which ended at last in low hollow groans." A galloping read. A similar copy of this unofficial publication resides in the collection of the Mitchell Library (NSW) where it is described as "a surreptitious account of Cook's second voyage from the journal of one of the officers (and) published anonymously a year before the official account". In the Library collection it is highlighted as an "extreme rarity" which provides an unsanitised account of this historical voyage. Condition:
- A very clean copy
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