The Dorothy Bullitt Collection on 18th century Explorers contains maps, lithographs, and narrative accounts documenting explorations by British Naval officers including Captains James Cook and George Vancouver in the late eighteenth century.

The collection includes eight volumes entitled Cook’s Voyages, which document expeditions of Captains John Byron, Samuel Wallis, Philip Carteret and James Cook around the world. Accounts in these volumes are written in diary form, describing the explorers’ experiences at sea and the lands and people they encountered. The volumes contain maps detailing routes and coastline surveys, and drawings of Native and First Nations people, their homes and tools, and surrounding landscapes. The first volume contains accounts of Byron’s voyages to the islands of Tuamotus, Tokelau, and also the Gilbert, North Marianas and Falkland Islands between 1764 and 1766. The volume also recounts Carteret and Wallis’ voyages in 1768-1769, including their respective exploration of the Straits of Magellan, the Pitcairn and Carteret Islands, and Wallis’ rounding of the Cape of Good Hope.

The remaining seven volumes of Cook’s Voyages document the three voyages of Captain James Cook. Volumes Two and Three include accounts of Cook’s first voyage (1768-1771) on the Endeavor and his exploration of New Zealand, New Holland (present day Australia) and other areas of the Southern Hemisphere. Volumes Four and Five detail his circling of Antarctica aboard the Resolution (1772-1775) and travels to Tahiti, New Zealand, Easter Island, the Marquesas Islands, Tonga and the New Hebrides. The seventh and eighth volumes recount Cook’s third and final voyage, also on the Resolution, including his exploration of the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii), and the charting of the coastline between Vancouver Island and the Bering Strait (in search of the Northwest Passage). The Atlas of Cook’s Voyages comprises copies of maps and drawings from Cook’s expeditions.

The explorations of John Meares are contained in one volume entitled Meares’s Voyages, which similarly includes maps and drawings in addition to narrative description of his travels. The volume describes Meares’ voyage from Calcutta to the Prince William Sound in 1786-1787 to establish a fur trade, and his return to the Sandwich Islands and Macao. Meares’s Voyages also details his second voyage in 1788 (which included travels to Nootka and Deception Bay from China), and the parallel journey of his trading partner William Douglas.

A Voyage Round The World documents the 1785 and 1787 explorations of Nathaniel Portlock, accompanied by George Dixon. The volume recounts their travels to the Falkland and Sandwich Islands, Cook’s River in Alaska, Prince William Sound and Nootka Sound, and also the Queen Charlotte islands and Macao. The narrative includes descriptions of Portlock and Dixon’s attempts to purchase and trade in furs in Alaska.

The collection includes A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World which consists of three volumes and a series of lithographs and maps pertaining to George Vancouver’s expeditions to the coast of present-day Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California, which he charted thoroughly between 1791 and 1795. Volume One details Vancouver’s journey through the South Pacific to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, south to port St. Francisco and then back north to Nootka Sound to attempt to negotiate with the Spanish. Vancouver then sailed back to port St. Francisco. The second volume documents Vancouver’s voyage up the California coast, to the Sandwich Islands, and then in the spring of 1793 to Burke Channel in British Columbia and then north to Revillagigedo Island in Alaska. Vancouver then sailed south to St. Diego. Volume Three documents Vancouver’s journey to the Sandwich Islands, Cook Inlet, Baranof Island and then southward all the way down the coast to Cape Horn and then back to England. The collection contains separately cataloged lithographs and maps that were removed from the volumes, and which document the landscape and people encountered during his expeditions.