Historical Prints

Views of Hawaii from Captain Cook's Voyages

James Cook (1728-1779), was one of the greatest explorers of any age. The stated purpose of Cook's first expedition to the Pacific, in 1768, was to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti, but Cook's secret instructions included orders to search for the great southern continent which was generally believed to exist but which had yet to be discovered.

After his return to England in 1771, Cook was sent on a new voyage to the Pacific, again to prove or disprove the existence of the great southern continent. Cook sailed south from the Cape of Good Hope, reaching the Antarctic Circle in January 1773, and eventually sailing around the globe at such a high degree of latitude that he proved that if there were a southern continent it lay much further south than had previously been assumed. He visited New Zealand, Tahiti and Tonga, and many other Pacific Islands before returning to England in 1775. On his third expedition, during a visit to the Hawaiian Islands in 1779, Cook was killed. These prints provide contemporary and accurate images from this great episode in the exploration of our world.

Prints of Cook voyages from Bankes' Universal Geography

Prints from Thomas Bankes' A Modern, Authentic and Complete System of Universal Geography. London: C. Cooke, ca. 1790. All approximately 4 1/2 x 6 1/2. Engravings.

A wonderful series of engravings from the Rev. Thomas Bankes' Geography, issued near the end of the eighteenth century. Bankes was the Vicar at Dixton, Monmouthshire, and he compiled his geography of all parts of the world, including "a Genuine History and Description of the Whole World." Also included in this work were images and reports from James Cook's three voyages, so that Bankes' volume provided as complete and up-to-date a report on the known world as was available at the time.