The Book of John Mandeville

Title Information

with Related Texts

Iain Macleod Higgins
Edited and Translated, with an Introduction, by Iain Macleod Higgins
2011 - 320 pp.

Format	ISBN	Price
Cloth	0-87220-936-9 978-0-87220-936-7	$39.95
Paper	0-87220-935-0 978-0-87220-935-0	$12.95
Examination	0-87220-935-0 978-0-87220-935-0	$2.00

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A fictive traveler’s guide to the East, both Near and Far, The Book of John Mandeville was a late-medieval best seller, more popular in its day than Marco Polo’s Travels.

In addition to a fresh, vibrant translation—the first from the Middle French original since the fifteenth century—this edition of The Book of John Mandeville offers a succinct, broad-ranging Introduction to the work that touches on the question of authorship, the sources on which the text drew, and the transformation and reception of the work down to the present day.

Also included are notes setting the work in its historical and cultural context and selections from related texts, including significant textual variants from William of Boldensele’s Book of Certain Regions beyond the Mediterranean and Odoric of Pordenone’s Relatio.

Iain Macleod Higgins is Associate Professor of English and Director of Medieval Studies,
University of Victoria.

CONTENTS:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Abbreviations

The Book of John Mandeville

Appendix A: Variants and Versions
   1. The Insular and Continental French Versions
   2. The Interpolated Continental (Liège) Version
   3. Three English Versions
   4. Two German Versions
   5. The Vulgate Latin Version

Appendix B: The Sources of The Book of John Mandeville
   1. William of Boldensele, Book of Certain Regions beyond the Mediterranean (Excerpt)
   2. (Pseudo-)William of Tripoli, Treatise on the State of the Saracens (Excerpt)
   3. Odoric of Pordenone, Account (Excerpt)
   4. How to Mount a Crusade Overseas (Excerpt)
   5. Hayton of Armenia, Flower of the Histories of the Land of the East (Excerpt)

Appendix C: Contexts and Commentary
   1. A Note on Geography and Cosmology
   2. A Note on the Astrolabe
   3. A Note on the Alphabets
   4. A Note on the Account of the Sultans in Chapter 6
   5. A Note on the Mongol Emperors and Their Early Empire

Works Cited and Select Bibliography
Index of Scriptural and Related Citations in Latin
Select Index of Proper Names

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Hackett Publishing

The Book of John Mandeville