John Hawkesworth’s An Account of the Voyages undertaken for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere

Record summary

John Hawkesworth’s four-volume compilation printed journals from the voyages of Byron, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook, including observations of Pacific birds, bats, and other unfamiliar animals. It matters because it became one of the most widely read eighteenth-century gateways through which Pacific fauna and indigenous traditions entered European culture. Hawkesworth edited and arranged the journals, so the text is simultaneously a documentary source and an editorial artifact. Researchers should compare its animal passages with original logs, especially when evaluating claims later repeated as reports of extraordinary creatures.