The achievements of Cook and other Pacific voyagers captured the European imagination. Publishers and booksellers in London and other European cities produced numerous editions of eye-wtness accounts of the south seas for a large and socially diverse audience.

Such was the wonder and fascination of eighteenth-century Europeans with the Pacific that the second half of the eighteenth century saw the publication of a remarkable body of imaginative literature, including fictitious travellers' accounts, utopian tracts, novels, poetry and plays.

South Seas offers full text editions of some of the more interesting and influential of these imaginative works, including:

John O'Keeffe, A short Account of the New Pantomime called Omai, or, a Trip round the World...London: 1785 edn