While the story of Endeavour is widely written about, Captain Cook sailed in or with eight ships which began their lives as merchant ships. This detailed illustrated history tells the story of these ships and the people who sailed in them. In placing these ships and people in the personal, political, social, financial, scientific and religious contexts of their times, this book provides a readable and comprehensible account of the long Eighteenth Century. Often using contemporary sources, this gripping account fills a gap in Cook history and attempts to catch something of that exciting, violent, gossipy but largely untaught and unknown period through which these vessels and their people sailed literally and figuratively between the old world and the new.

Stephen Baines was born and bred in Yorkshire, and has ancestors who were mariners in Whitby. He studied Theology at Cambridge University and trained as a teacher in London. Having taught English for several years in a comprehensive school he moved to the Sixth Form College at Colchester where he introduced the International Baccalaureate. After retiring from full-time teaching he worked for two years part-time at Essex University, lecturing in Philosophy. He has written a book on the Carleton of Whitby as well as a number of articles.