Following his participation in James Cook’s circumnavigation in HMS Endeavour (1768–71), Joseph Banks developed an extensive global network of scientists and explorers. His correspondence shows how he developed effective working links with the British Admiralty and with the generation of naval officers who sailed after Cook. He was familiar with most natural philosophers in Britain and across Europe, many of whom consulted his unrivalled collections of Pacific natural history and ethnology, and who shared specimens and information with him regarding the region. Banks also advised the British government and commercial enterprise in the development of successive ventures to India, the Far East and the Pacific. His career demonstrates how a private individual could influence global exploration in the Georgian era. Banks’s correspondence is one of the great primary sources for shedding light on a key period of exploration and colonial expansion. This edition, in combination with The Scientific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1765–1820 , provides the ideal platform for a consistent editorial approach to the correspondence of a figure of global importance. It will be essential for scholars researching the History of Science, Empire Studies, Eighteenth-Century Studies and Maritime History.