The Journal of the Endeavour, Volume I: Cape Horn, Tahiti and the Shores of New Zealand

Summer 1768. At Deptford, on the Thames, a still obscure lieutenant takes command of an old collier renamed the Endeavour. His mission holds two secrets: to observe, on the far side of the world, the passage of Venus across the sun, and to search for the southern continent believed to lie hidden in the seas of the South.

From the English Channel to Cape Horn, the Endeavour faces the suspicion of a viceroy in Rio, the deadly cold of Tierra del Fuego and the storms of the far South. Then Tahiti appears, with its lagoons, its chiefs and the thefts of objects that exasperate the English crew. On June 3, 1769, under a cloudless sky, Venus finally glides across the face of the sun.

But the true adventure begins afterward. Guided by Tupaia, a Tahitian priest and navigator, Cook sets a course south, toward the unknown, until a new coastline rises on the horizon: New Zealand. There, the first steps turn to bloodshed, and every bay holds its own ordeal.

This first volume of Cook's authentic journal leads the reader, day by day, to the shore of Mercury Bay, where astronomy and conquest meet. The rest of the voyage awaits, beyond the horizon.

This voyage is not a simple expedition of discovery: it is a scientific mission commissioned by the Royal Society and the British Admiralty, one of the earliest ventures in international scientific cooperation, since observing the transit of Venus was expected to allow the exact distance between the Earth and the Sun to be calculated. On board, the naturalist Joseph Banks and the Swedish botanist Daniel Solander record an unprecedented scientific harvest, while the astronomer Charles Green trains his instruments on the southern sky.

The text followed here is Cook's own personal journal, written day by day aboard the Endeavour, long before the reworked and embellished accounts that the editor John Hawkesworth would publish in 1773 for the general public. Here we find the direct voice of a meticulous sailor, more attentive to headings, winds and men than to literary effect, which makes it a firsthand source on the very first contacts between Europeans and the peoples of the Pacific, in Tahiti as in New Zealand.

This is the first complete modern rewriting for today's reader, one that makes this testimony readable without betraying anything of the voyage. Twenty original illustrations and redrawn maps bring the itinerary to life, while a set of reference materials (glossary, timeline, index, further reading, editor's note, afterword) and selected passages from the original text illuminate the reading.