Gordon Cowley and Les Deacon.
In the wake of Captain Cook: The life and times of Captain Charles Clerke, R.N. 1741-79.
Richard Kay Publications.
1997.
ISBN 0-902662-49-X.

I think it is a very attractive cover, and got into reading it more easily than I did with the Richard Hough book, Captain James Cook, earlier.

They set the scene well, and one has to remember all readers who know very little of even Cook, but myself I got a bit impatient for the Charles Clerke story. It was a shame MARTON was mis-spelt and likely to be confused with a civil war battlefield perhaps, but one always gets printers errors or readers.

I felt there was quite a precis of Beaglehole, but the sources of any information are bound to be the usual ones.

I think it was a worthy project to compile a book giving more prominence to Clerke's life, and an admirable amount of research, etc., has taken place, and any collector of Cook related material would want a copy. My impression of Clerke is still bound in the Beaglehole and the interpretation shown in the TV series about Cook starring Keith Michell.

If Gordon Cowley is, as I assumed, a descendant of Ambrose Cowley, who circumnavigated the world 1683-1686, named Pepy's Island and claimed the Falkland Islands in the name of the King, it is understandable that he should take a keen interest in the voyages of later explorers, especially Captains Cook and Clerke.

Brenda Paulding

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 1524, volume 21, number 3 (1998).