Reval [Tallinn, Estonia] ; und Leipzig : bey Albrecht und Compagnie, 1780. [Bound with] Briefe aus England historisch-statistisch und artistischen Inhalts. 1s Heft. Reval [= Tallinn, Estonia] & Leipzig, Albrecht und Compagnie, 1780. Two works in one volume, octavo; contemporary half calf, sprinkled papered boards, brown morocco spine label with title in gilt (binding slightly rubbed, especially around the spine and along the extremities); 48; [14], [2 blank] pp; with a woodcut of a ship on the title page of the second work and woodcut headpieces in both; text in German (the first work also has two poems in English); some leaves slightly browned, occasional stains, small wormhole in the outer margin of pp. 15-26, otherwise very good; housed in a custom-made clamshell box with a red title label with gold lettering on spine.
The first work (Nachrichten) opens with a short two-stanza poem in English, On the death of Captain Cook, which was originally published under the nom de plume “Platonicus” in a London newspaper, the General Evening Post of 11-13 January 1780 (see Ruth Scobie. The many deaths of Captain Cook : a study in metropolitan mass culture, 1780-1810. PhD, University of York, Department of English, April 2013, p. 71 and p. 76).
The eulogy – here anonymous – is followed by a foreword and ‘a short account of Cook’s life, his voyages and his death, with many inaccuracies on his early career’ (Beddie). The recent information in the booklet is contained in a letter, Auszug des Briefes von Kensington den 4ten Febr. 1780 die Nachrichten von Kapitain Cook betressend. This letter ‘includes paraphrases of passages in Captain Charles Clerke’s letter to the Admirality, written at Kamchatka on June 8, 1779, announcing the death of Cook at Hawaii’ (Forbes). It includes many references to the Hawaiian Islands.
The work closes with a laudatory poem of substantial length (pp. 44-47), also in English, An Elegy on the Death of the late Captain Cook, which has been attributed to Anna Seward. It is followed by a German translation.
In addition to the present edition in the original German, Albrecht also published in Tallinn a French translation, Précis de la vie & des voyages du Capitaine Cook. Écrit de Kensington ce 4 février 1780 (Beddie 242). The two editions appeared more or less simultaneously.
The second work in this volume, Briefe aus England, would seem to be even rarer than the first. It was also published by Albrecht in Tallinn in 1780, and in a matching format to Nachrichten. It comprises a letter concerning the 1775 voyage to the west coast of North America by the Spanish voyager Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. Hill claims that Cook used the account of this voyage written by Mourelle, Bodega’s second pilot, as an aid on his own third voyage.
Presumably, Cook had access to a manuscript copy in Spanish or English, because the English translation of Mourelle’s voyage journal was the first printed version of his account and was not published until 1781, when it appeared in Daines Barrington’s Miscellany of that year, as Journal of a Voyage in 1775, to Explore the Coast of America, Northward of California . . . in the King’s Schooner, called the Sonora, and Commanded by Don Juan Francisco de la Bodega. This probably makes Briefe aus England the earliest account in book form of Bodega’s 1775 voyage to the Northwest. Ironically, just as Cook had valued the information in Mourelle’s account of Bodega’s voyage, the present work contains many references to the voyages of Cook.
[FIRST WORK: Nachrichten] Beddie 241, 1954, 243; Forbes 18; Howgego C176; VD18 11228342; cf. Du Rietz 1060 (French & German eds.); not in Hill. Trove locates three copies in Australian libraries (NLA; SLNSW; SLV). Rare Book Hub records a single copy at auction, which was similarly bound with the second work (Reiss und Sohn, 2009, 127,600 EUR).
