Page - 26 - in >mcs_lab> - Mobile Culture Studies, Volume 2/2020

26 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 6 2o20 (Travel)Sandra Vlasta | Enlightening report versus enlightened traveller plants, and animals would attract more readers than one with text alone (see Sherman 2002: 30–31). Furthermore, they knew that their readers would expect illustrations, not least as evi- dence of their scientific findings (see Walchester 2019: 128). From the beginning, the allocation of different objects and motifs to be painted by Hodges on the one hand and by the Forsters on the other ensured that there would be various sets of paintings and drawings that could be used in different ways. Clearly, both the initiators and the principal executors of the expedition had already had in mind the various ways in which the voyage could be exploited, both financially and with a view to possible later gains and personal promotions. In fact, the disagreements outlined above were largely the result of the parties’ awareness of this aspect of the expedition. Insofar as Johann Reinhold Forster was denied the right to write his account of the voyage, only one option remained open to the Forsters, who desperately needed money and had coun- ted on being able to profit from the journey: Georg would have to write the travelogue. This was a race against time, however, as in order to secure interested readers, Forster’s account would have to be ready prior to the publication of Cook’s. Georg Forster worked fast and diligently and eventually succeeded in publishing the account six weeks prior to the release of Captain Cook’s. Still, as the latter had already been advertised, and as its famous author and numerous illustrations attracted more readers, Georg Forster sold far fewer copies than Cook. He had been working in parallel on a German translation, however, the first volume of which appeared a year later, in 1778, and enjoyed greater commercial success. Unlike the English title, the German title (Johann Reinhold Forster’s Reise um die Welt […] beschrieben und her- ausgegeben von dessen Sohn und Reisegefährten Georg Forster) puts Georg’s father at centre stage. This is understandable, as at the time the naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster was well known in Germany, whereas his young son became popular only after the publication of Reise um die Welt. Unlike the English version, the German travelogue contains illustrations: twelve cop- per engravings, three of which depict New Zealand plants, one a plant from Tahiti, and the rest weapons and, mainly, handicraft (decorations, tools, accessories such as hats and fans, musical instruments), as can be seen in Images 1–3. These illustrations are an integral part of the travelogue in the sense that Forster also refers to them in the text. The text and the illustrations are carefully matched — the instructions for where each of the illustrati- ons should be placed in the book are printed on each of the sketches (these were printed separately and later included in the bound volume). On the page with the image of the New Zealand spruce tree, for instance, the Image 1: ‘die Neu-Seeländische Thée-Myrthe’ [New Zealand tea myrtle] (Forster 1778: opposite p. 97)