Arthur Kitson

Arthur Kitson was an English engineer and author whose historical interests produced a substantial biography of the navigator James Cook. The Life of Captain James Cook is a shortened display form of The Life of Captain James Cook, the Circumnavigator. Kitson first published his longer study through John Murray in 1907, then prepared a condensed popular edition in 1912, correcting small errors and adding information about surviving documents. The book follows Cook from his Yorkshire childhood and merchant apprenticeship through Royal Navy service, survey work, and the major Pacific voyages. Kitson consulted colonial records and information about privately held material, giving documentary history an important place in his narrative. The 1912 edition included a portrait, folded map, index, and 334 pages. Although later Cook scholarship developed beyond Kitson’s account, the work remains a notable early twentieth-century attempt to organize the navigator’s career for general readers. Its full title and edition history distinguish the original study from Kitson’s condensed version.