John Mandeville

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (Dodo Press)

"Jehan de Mandeville", translated as "Sir John Mandeville", is the name claimed by the compiler of a singular book of supposed travels, written in Anglo- Norman French, and published between 1357 and 1371. By aid of translations into many other languages it acquired extraordinary popularity. Despite the extremely unreliable and often fantastical nature of the travels it describes, it was used as a work of reference - Christopher Columbus, for example, was heavily influenced by both this work and Marco Polo's earlier Il Milione. In his preface the compiler calls himself a knight, and states that he was born and bred in England, of the town of St Albans. He crossed the sea on Michaelmas Day 1322; had traversed by way of Turkey (Asia Minor), Armenia the little (Cilicia) and the great, Tartary, Persia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt upper and lower, Libya, great part of Ethiopia, Chaldea, Amazonia, India the less, the greater and the middle, and many countries about India; had often been to Jerusalem, and had written in Romance as more generally understood than Latin.