The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

Abstract

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (also known as Mandeville’s Travels), from its appearance in the mid-1300s to c.1600, was the most widely distributed and one of the most influential accounts of the world. It continued to attract many readers for a further two centuries. It was adapted and used for many special interests. However, the earliest extant versions – we do not have the author’s holograph – show a subtlety of writing and thought which makes the book far more than a work simply of information: this suggests a serious doctrine of Nature or ‘Kynde’, having a strong moral purpose, and conveyed with grace and wit. It is a unique weaving together of several narrative modes – romance, pilgrimage narrative, topography, devotion – held together by the device of a subtly characterised and ironic narrator on a journey to the uttermost parts of the Earth and back again.

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