8vo (208 x 118 mm). Engraved folding map, 5 engraved plates. (Very slight offsetting.) Contemporary sprinkled calf (rebacked to style preserving old lettering-piece gilt, slight wear to corners). Provenance: Sold Quaritch (pencilled collation note "coll. pp. B. Quaritch" on lower paste-down); collector's bookplate, a few pencil marks.

FIRST EDITION of the "first printed account of man's entry into the region South of Antarctic Circle, with rare additional chart facing p.1" (Spence). "This rare account of Cook's second voyage was published surreptitiously eighteen months before Cook's official narrative. It records many incidents omitted by Cook and gives the reasons which caused Sir Joseph Banks and his twelve assistants to withdraw from the expedition at the last moment. Marra was a gunner's mate on the Resolution... [he] made an unsuccessful attempt to desert at Tahiti on May 14, 1774. Marra probably supplied material from his private journal which was put into shape by some literary person in the pay of the publisher Newbery" (Hill). The plates include the first views of the Antarctic. Hill 1087; Rosove 214.A1.a; Spence 758.