Overview

Here, in one accessible volume, is Ray Parkin's highly acclaimed and multi-award winning study of Captain James Cook's Endeavour. This incomparable book is a unique account of a great journey-Endeavour's voyage up the east coast of Australia in 1770-and a remarkable re-creation of the experience of being on board ship. Parkin draws on meticulous research to reveal what the Endeavour looked like, how it sailed, how it smelled, what daily life would have been like for those on board. How many strands of yarn were in the ship's cable? (954.) Did the ship have a lightning conductor? (Yes.) What was the diameter of her main mast? (21 inches.) These details are illustrated by plans and figures depicting the ship's architecture and construction, its deck plan, rigging, sails, armament, boats, cables, anchors and accommodation, all beautifully drawn by Parkin. A composite log of Endeavour's voyage-extracts from journals kept by those on board-is supplemented by an interpretive commentary and explanatory charts. H.M. Bark Endeavour is an absorbing book- discursive, erudite, at times poetic, full of wisdom, insight and information.

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9780522876437

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Ray Parkin (1910-2005) was born in Melbourne. He joined the royal Australian Navy in 1928 and spent eighteen years in the service. In 1942 he was on board HMAS Perth when the cruiser was sunk by the Japanese in the Sunda Strait, killing two-thirds of those on board. After the sinking of Perth Parkin spent three and a half years as a Japanese prisoner of war in Java, on the Burma-Siam Railway and in coal mines in Japan. His experiences during this period led to three books-Out of the Smoke, Into the Smother and The Sword and the Blossom-published to critical acclaim by The Hogarth Press in London in the 1960s and republished by MUP as Ray Parkin's Wartime Trilogy. At the end of the war, Parkin completed a fine art course. He worked on the Melbourne waterfront until his retirement in 1975, when he went to London to continue his research into Endeavour.

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