"Meet John Ledyard, perhaps the greatest little-known explorer in American history. Ledyard (1751-1789) sailed with Capt. James Cook, formed a fur trading company with John Paul Jones, and dreamed, with Thomas Jefferson, of walking across the United States 20 years before Lewis and Clark set off on their famous expedition. Ledyard's journals, letters, and one published book, collected for the first time in one volume, showcase the uncontainable wanderlust of a unique American spirit. A Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage is the only account of Cook's third voyage to be published by an American. It is a record of life aboard the first ship to sail to the Hawaiian islands and Cook's violent death on a Hawaiian beach.

Ledyard's Siberian journals recount a harrowing journey through Russia under the rule of Catherine the Great, while his diary from Alexandria and Cairo provides a brilliant and rare account of Egypt before Napoleon's invasion. Finally, Ledyard's correspondence sheds light on pre-revolutionary Paris and on his friendships with the Marquis de Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, and Sir Joseph Banks. In his short life, John Ledyard traveled farther than any American had before."--Jacket.