James Cook was the last and greatest of the romantic navigators. In his relatively short and adventurous life (1728-1729) he voyages to the eastern and western seaboards of North America, the North and South Pacific and the Arctic and Antarctic, bringing about a new comprehension of the world's geography and its peoples.
He was the linking figures between the grey speculation of the early eighteenth century and the industrial age of the first half of the nineteenth century.
Richard Hough has written an exciting and marvellously readable biography, full of new insights and interpretations of one of the world's greatest mariners.
Contents:
Illustrations
Maps and Drawings
Foreword
Chronology
1. The Young Ambition
2. 'An Ambition to Go Into the Navy'
3. 'Mr Cook's Genius and Capaicty'
4. Appointment the the 'Endeavour' Bark
5. The People and the Gentlemen
6. 'A Nursery for Desperation'
7. Mar del Pacifico
8. Venus Observed
9. 'These People are Much Given to War'
10. 'The First Discoverer'
11. 'Insane Labyrinth'
12. Paradise to Stinking Hell
13. 'A Voyage Such as Had Never Been Made Before'
14. 'Disgracing the Country'
15. 'Such a Long Passage at Sea'
16. Queen Charlotte Sound Rendezvous
17. Horrors of Grass Cove
18. From Icebergs to Tropical Heat
19. 'The Most Horrible Coast in the World'
20. 'A Communication Between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans'
21. A Stalled Departure
22. Delays and More Delays
23. Farwell Omai
24. 'Very Nice Pilotage'
25. The Great Island
26. Death Among the Rocks
27. A Lament for Orono
28. 'An Everlasting Honour to his Country'
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Source References
Index
Review:Richard Hough's biography is as fascinating as it is felicitous in style and entertaining in content - Lord Carver, The Sunday Telegraph
Hough tells the story with skill to give a convincing smell of the sea - Flora Fraser, The Times
Captain James Cook does handsome justice to the navigator - Ian Thompson, The Independent
