"When English naturalist Joseph Banks (1743-1820) accompanied Captain James Cook (1728-1779) on his historic mission into the Pacific, the Endeavour voyage of 1768-1771, he took with him a team of collectors and illustrators. Banks and his team returned with unprecedented collections of artefacts and specimens of stunning birds, fish, and other animals as well as thousands of plants, most seen for the first time in Europe. They produced, too, remarkable landscape and figure drawings of the peoples encountered on the voyage along with detailed journals and descriptions of the places visited, which, with the first detailed maps of these lands (Tahiti, New Zealand and the east coast of Australia), were afterwards used to create lavishly illustrated accounts of the mission. These ... objects, along with contemporary portraits of key personalities aboard the ship, a scale model and plans of the ship itself, scientific instruments taken on the voyage, and commemorative medals and sketches - will tell the story of the Endeavour voyage. "--Back cover.