The Flowering of the Pacific. Being an account of Joseph Banks' travels in the South Seas and the study of his Florilegium. 1986. Many coloured and black and white figures. 194 p. 4to. Cloth.

This book is an account of Joseph Banks' and James Cook's voyage intothe unknown and the final realization of its scientific fruits by anequally courageous modern printing enterprise. The narrative begins withthe voyage of the Endeavour to her main landfalls at Madeira, Rio deJaneiro, Tierra del Fuego, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Java and homeby way of the Cape of Good Hope. It progresses in chronological sequencethrough Banks' increasingly busy and celebrated life as the pivotalfigure of British science for 40 years, the attempts to get theengravings published after his death, and the re-kindling of interest inthe project during the 1960s. A bibliography at the end of the booklists principal publications about Banks, Cook and other members of theship's complement. The appendix includes technical and distributiondetails of the Florilegium, and chapter notes state the main sources ofinformation, together with additional information about the Endeavourvoyage, and eighteenth-century botanical illustration and productionprocedures for Banks' Florilegium.