Captain James Cook’s three epic voyages of exploration which charted the largely unexplored Pacific Ocean and twice circumnavigated the globe, made significant contributions to contemporary geographic and scientific knowledge, and captured the public imagination. The official publications of all three voyages were immensely popular with second editions following within a year of the first; images were reproduced almost immediately by popular ‘magazines’ such as The Gentleman’s Magazine, The Lady’s Magazine, and Town and Country Magazine as well as by a variety of encyclopaedias. Subsequent official and several unofficial accounts were further issued with alterations and additions as well as numerous editions in other languages.

From the beginning the publication of the First voyage garnered immense interest but also immense criticism. Cook and Sir Joseph Bank’s journals were given to John Hawkesworth editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine to publish with three other Pacific voyages. Hawkesworth not only confusingly blended accounts but added his own opinion to what was presented as Cook’s narrative. In addition, many of the images were significantly different from the original sketches by the artists employed by Banks. Landscape artist Alexander Buchan and natural history artist Sydney Parkinson both died on the voyage as did Herman Sporing, draughtsman to the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander. The artists and engravers directed by Hawkesworth had not been on the voyage and as one contemporary reviewer remarked ‘instead of the Costume of the South Sea Islanders, the spectator is presented with figures… that continually remind him… (of Rome)’. The Dolphin expedition did not have an artist and those images seemed to rely on earlier descriptions from recent voyages to the East Indies. Although Banks had a substantial collection of Parkinson’s sketches and employed a team of artists to create finished botanical studies, only a few of these were printed, and that project was not completed owing to financial difficulties and a dispute with Parkinson’s brother. Stanfield Parkinson went on to publish A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas based on his brother’s papers a few days after Hawesworth’s work was issued.

The illustrations for the Second and Third voyages fared considerably better with the appointments of official artists William Hodges for the former (accompanied by natural history artists Johann and Georg Forster) and John Webber for the latter (accompanied by natural history artist William Ellis). Both Hodges and Webber survived the voyages to oversee the subsequent works and, although there may have been some artistic license, the landscapes and ethnographic images benefited considerably from the artists’ first hand understanding making it from sketch to completed plate.