Lot 102: 

SYDNEY PARKINSON (1745-1771)
A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in His majesty's Ship, the Endeavour. London: for Stanfield Parkinson, 1773. Large 4° (327 x 266mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece, engraved map of the coast of New Zealand, and 26 further engraved plates, with two-page errata leaf. (Plates offset onto facing pages as usual, some sporadic, mainly light, spotting and browning to text and plates.) Later half morocco, spine lettered in gilt, red edges (extremities rubbed). Provenance: Melbourne bookseller's ticket to front pastedown.

FIRST EDITION. A HANDSOME COPY WITH GENEROUS MARGINS. Parkinson embarked aboard HMS Endeavour as Sir Joseph Banks's botanical artist at a fee of 80 per annum, but died in January 1771 en route to the Cape of Good Hope on the homeward leg of this Cook's first voyage. Banks spoke highly of Parkinson's 'unbounded industry' and the young artist's journal remains the finest personal account of Cook's first voyage. As well as providing some valuable South-Sea vocabularies and the first published use of the word kangaroo (p.149), the journal gives a more intimate portrait of Cook's discoveries than Hawkesworth's official account. On HMS Endeavour's return a bitter dispute arose between Parkinson's brother Stanfield and Sir Joseph Banks as to the ownership of Parkinson's personal papers and drawings. As a result the publication of this edition, edited by Stanfield Parkinson, was halted by an injunction in the Court of Chancery which prevented further copies from being sold until the official account of the voyage edited by John Hawkesworth had been published. Banks also ensured that those of Parkinson's drawings which were used in the official account went unacknowledged. Hill 1308; Beddie 712, Hocken, pp12-13; Ellis Early Prints of New Zealand, p.19; Holmes 7; Streeter 2406; Sabin 58787; cf. Forbes Hawaiian National Bibliography I, 82.