Joseph Banks: A Life by Patrick O'Brian

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges.

Joseph Banks was one of the most influential figures in British maritime history and the country's natural sciences development.

Born in 1743, he travelled with Captain Cook on the Endeavour, collecting thousands of plant and animal specimens. Unofficially the first director of the Botanic Gardens at Kew, Banks was also President of the Royal Society for a remarkable 42 years.

Patrick O’Brian has written a biography of Banks, notable for its erudition and sympathy with its polymathic subject. Drawing on Banks’s extensive correspondence and journals, as well as sources as diverse as the Proceedings of the Royal Society and the diaries of Fanny Burney, O’Brian has produced a rounded portrait that does justice to an extraordinary man and the range of his achievements. (back cover)