In his Book of Marvels and Travels, Sir John Mandeville describes a journey from Europe
to Jerusalem and on into Asia, and the many wonderful and monstrous peoples and ...
MoreIn his
Book of Marvels and Travels, Sir John Mandeville describes a journey from Europe
to Jerusalem and on into Asia, and the many wonderful and monstrous peoples and practices in the East.
He tells us about the Sultan in Cairo, the Great Khan in China, and the mythical Christian prince
Prester John. There are giants and pygmies, cannibals and Amazons, headless humans and people with a
single foot so huge it can shield them from the sun . Forceful and opinionated, the narrator is by turns
bossy, learned, playful, and moralizing, with an endless curiosity about different cultures.Written in the fourteenth century, the
Book is a captivating blend of fact and fantasy,
an extraordinary travel narrative that offers some revealing and unexpected attitudes towards other
races and religions. It was immensely popular, and numbered among its readers Chaucer, Columbus, and
Thomas More. Anthony Bale's new translation emphasizes the book's readability, and his introduction and
notes bring us closer to Mandeville's medieval worldview.
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