80/3428 Parkinson, S. A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in his Majesty's Ship, The Endeavour. London, the author, 1773, 1st ed., XXIII,(1),212,(2)p., engr. frontisp. portrait, 27 plates, contemp. calf w. richly gilt spine w. mor. letterpiece, gilt boardedges, folio.

- Armorial bookplate of Wadham Wyndham Esq. on upper pastedown; occas. light offsetting from plates. Sl. rubbed along extremities. Otherwise a fine copy w. large margins.

= Beddie 712; Hill 1309; Howgego I, C173; Sabin 58787. First edition of one of the principal visual accounts of Cook's First Voyage. Parkinson joined Cook's expedition as natural history draughtsman at the behest of Sir Joseph Banks, which also included some of the earliest European views of the South Pacific. His valuable observations include the first published use of the word 'kangaroo' (as 'kangooroo', p149), and his vocabularies of South Sea languages cover the "languages of Otaheite, New Zealand, New Holland, Savoo, and Sumatra, the Malayan language spoken at Batavia, called the low Malay, and the language of Anjenga on the coast of Malabar, called the high or proper Malay" (Hill). After exploring Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, and the Great Barrier Reef, the expedition reached Batavia, where Parkinson contracted malaria and dysentery, dying shortly after the departure for the Cape of Good Hope. SEE ILLUSTRATION PLATE CXXXIV.