Book excerpt: Sir Joseph Banks was one of the great figures of Georgian England, best known for participating as naturalist in Cook's Endeavour voyage (1768-71), as a patron of science and as the longest-serving President of the Royal Society (1778-1820). This volume brings together all Banks's papers concerning Iceland and the North Atlantic, scattered in repositories in Britain, the United States, Australia and Denmark, and most published here for the first time. A detailed introduction places them in historical context.