A Voyage Round the World is Georg Forster's report on the second voyage of the British explorer James Cook. During the preparations for Cook's voyage, the expedition's naturalist Joseph Banks had withdrawn his participation, and Georg's father, Johann Reinhold Forster, had taken his place at very short notice, with his seventeen-year-old son as his assistant. They sailed on HMS Resolution with Cook, accompanied by HMS Adventure under Tobias Furneaux. On the voyage, they circumnavigated the world, crossed the Antarctic Circle and sailed as far south as 71° 10′, discovered several Pacific islands, encountered diverse cultures and described many species of plants and animals.
Title page from the first edition of A Voyage Round the World
Portrait of Dr Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster, by John Francis Rigaud, London c. 1780. The plant in the brim of the elder Forster's hat is a Forstera sedifolia and the bird in his hand is a New Zealand bellbird, locating the scene in New Zealand. However, the painting has been commonly called "Reinhold and George Forster at Tahiti" or similar. In 1781, it was exhibited at the Royal Academy under the title Portrait of Dr. Foster and his Son on the island of Otaheite.
Georg Forster's Chart of the Southern Hemisphere, engraved by William Whitchurch, March 1777
A View of the Cape of Good Hope, Taken on the Spot, from on Board the Resolution, painting by William Hodges, 1772
Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster, was a German geographer, naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold Forster, on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. His report of that journey, A Voyage Round the World, contributed significantly to the ethnology of the people of Polynesia and remains a respected work. As a result of the report, Forster, who was admitted to the Royal Society at the early age of twenty-two, came to be considered one of the founders of modern scientific travel literature.
Georg Forster at age 26, by J. H. W. Tischbein, 1781
James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Resolution and Adventure in Matavai Bay by William Hodges
One of Forster's many illustrations of birds now extinct, the Tanna ground dove, also known as Forster's dove of Tanna