ZIMMERMANN Heinrich Dernier voyage du capitaine Cook autour du Monde, où se trouvent les circonstances de sa mort.

Hill, p.333, Beaglehole, III, p.ccvi, O’Reilly-reitman, 423; Sabin, 106345; Forbes, 59; Lada-Mocarski, 33

First French edition, extremely rare. Zimmermann’s first-hand narrative account of Cook’s first voyage appeared, in German, at Manheim in 1781. The French version was next. In any early edition, this is one of the scarcest of all the Cook voyage accounts (there is no copy of any of the eighteenth century editions in the Hill catalogue). It was the first description of the third voyage to appear on the continent, and as one of the two accounts first published in 1781- a full three years before the official account- it may well be the first description of the voyage to have been published. It includes an eyewitness account of Cook’s death and is also “valuable for his lower-deck impressions of the character of Cook” (Beaglehole).

“Zimmermann, a native of Speyer, was coxswain in the Discovery … from the start of the voyage he determined to keep a shorthand journal and to retain it despite the instructions…” (Holmes).

“The narrative is on the first 117 pages of text, followed by a life of Captain Cook (pp. 118-182). This is adapted from the account appearing in the Göttingisches Magazin in 1780, the latter largely the work of Georg Forster. In this work the accuracy of the information is said to have been confirmed by ‘Mr. Lichtenberg, Celebre professeur à Goettingue, & Mr Foster, aussi professeur à Cassel’. The ‘Mr Foster’ is Georg Forster, who is said to have derived general knowledge of the third voyage from Zimmermann and another Berman, Barthold Lohmann, a quartermaster on the Discovery. A second edition of this work, in which the type was reset… is known. Holmes says both editions are of great rarity and are of interest not only on that account but because of the additional matter which they contain” (Forbes).

A very nice copy of a famous rarity.