Editing John Beaglehole (section)

==Editing Cook's journals==

Beaglehole became known internationally for his work on Cook's journals which brought out his great gifts as historian and editor. It was not all desk work among the archives – he also travelled widely in Cook's wake, from [[Whitby]] to [[Tahiti]], to [[Tonga]] and to the [[New Hebrides]]. The four volumes of the journals that emerged between 1955 and 1967 were subsidised by the New Zealand government which also set up a special research post for their author. The sheer size of these tomes, each of them approaching 1,000 pages, may seem disconcerting at first sight, but they are enlivened by Beaglehole's stylish and often witty introductions, intended to set the journals in their contexts. As well as Cook's own journals Beaglehole also printed, either entire or in lengthy extracts, the journals of several of Cook's colleagues on the voyages. The introductions themselves, together with copious footnotes, reveal the breadth of his erudition. They cover many topics, ranging from the structure of Polynesian society to oceanography, navigation, cartography, and much else.

Much of the zoological and botanical notes for Beaglehole's work on James Cook's three voyages were provided by Dr [[Averil Margaret Lysaght]].<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Clement|editor1-first=Christine|editor2-last=Johnston|editor2-first=Judith|title=Women of South Taranaki, their stories = Nga wahine toa o Taranaki tonga, o ratou korero|date=1993|publisher=Hawera Suffrage Centennial Local History Group|location=Hawera|isbn=047302046-7|page=182}}</ref>

Cook's journals themselves had never before been comprehensively and accurately presented to the public, and to do so required enormous research since copies and fragments of the journals and related material were scattered in various archives in London, Australia and New Zealand. For his edition, Beaglehole sought out the various surviving holographs in Cook's own hand in preference to copies by his clerks on board ship, and others. For the first voyage, the voyage of the ''[[HM Bark Endeavour|Endeavour]]'', he used mainly the manuscript journal<ref>[http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms1 Cook, James, 1728–1779. Journal of the H.M.S. Endeavour, 1768–1771 manuscript.]</ref> held in the [[National Library of Australia]] at Canberra. This only came to light in 1923, when the heirs of a [[Teesside]] ironmaster, Henry Bolckow, put it up for sale. Bolckow had purchased this manuscript at an earlier auction, in 1868, but had not made his ownership widely known, and consequently it was assumed for many years that no such holograph existed. For the second voyage Beaglehole used two other partial journals in Cook's hand, both of which had the same early history as the ''Endeavour'' journal. All three had probably once been owned by Cook's widow, and sold by a relation of hers at the 1868 auction. The difference was that the two partial journals from the second voyage were then purchased by the [[British Museum]] and not by Bolckow, and hence had long been available for public consultation. And for the third voyage Beaglehole's main source was a journal written, and much revised, by Cook up to early January 1779, a month before he died. What happened to the final month's entries, which must certainly have been made, is uncertain.<ref>Glyn Williams: ''The Death of Captain Cook'', Profile Books, 2008</ref> This, too, is today in the [[British Library]], the successor to the British Museum as a manuscript repository.

All students of Cook owe an enormous debt to Beaglehole for his all-encompassing editorship. So much so, in fact, that today it is difficult to view the subject of Cook except through Beaglehole's perspective. Some recent biographies of Cook have tended to be little else than abbreviated versions of Beaglehole.<ref>For a discussion of some recent books on Cook see Glyndwr Williams, 'Reassessing Cook' in ''Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments'', ed. G. Williams, London, The Boydell Press, 2004</ref> Nevertheless, it is also clear that Beaglehole’s work is, by and large, a continuation of the long tradition of Cook idealisation, a tradition from which post-Beaglehole scholarship has started to diverge.<ref>Nicholas Thomas: page xxxvi. ''Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook'', London, Allen Lane, 2003</ref>  For Beaglehole, Cook was an heroic figure who practically could do no wrong, and he is scathing about those contemporaries of Cook who ever ventured to criticise his hero, such as [[Alexander Dalrymple]], the geographer, and [[Johann Reinhold Forster]], who accompanied Cook on the second voyage. Recent research has to some extent rehabilitated both Dalrymple and Forster.<ref>For the rehabilitation see Andrew Cook's introduction to the reissue of Dalrymple's ''An Account of the Discoveries made in the South Pacific Ocean'', Sydney, 1996; also, Michael E. Hoare (ed.), ''The Tactless Philosopher: Johann Reinhold Forster [1729–98]'', Wellington NZ, 1979</ref>