Cook, James, and James King:

$4,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

TROISIÈME VOYAGE DE COOK, OU VOYAGE A L'OCÉAN PACIFIQUE, ORDONNÉ PAR LE ROI D'ANGLETERRE.... The exceedingly scarce eight-volume French octavo edition of Cook's third and final voyage. This edition, not recorded in any of the standard bibliographies, appears to have been issued by Hôtel de Thou simultaneously with the much more common four-volume octavo edition, itself published alongside the quarto edition of the same year. Neither octavo edition was accompanied by an atlas, but Forbes notes that "purchasers of this edition may have been able to obtain copies of the quarto edition atlas to complete their sets," owing to the closeness of their publication. No eight-volume edition of Cook's third voyage is recorded by Forbes, Beddie, or Sabin, and we locate no evidence of such an edition on either Rare Book Hub or ABPC. OCLC locates only a single complete set in the northern hemisphere (at the St. Louis Mercantile Library), three more in Australia, and one in New Zealand. A very nice set of one of the rarest editions of Cook.

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