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Title: Travels of Sir John Mandeville by John Mandeville ISBN: 0-14-044435-1 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: February, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: anarchy and imagination
Comment: This is a fourteenth-century travel book telling us of the English "Sir" John Mandeville's real or imagined adventures in the East. The first part deals with the land of Egypt and the second with "the lands beyond" -. But did he actually ever leave England?? Did this Knighted author actually exist? Was he French? We'll never know, but this volume is a thorough compendium of medieval mythic lore, which he artfully blends in collage-form (very much in the fashion of the allegedly "post-modern" writing), which would be a great success throughout Europe for centuries to come. One of these pleased readers would be Christopher Columbus, who here fed his imagination on the passion for distant travels!
Together with this book I recommend the popular VOYAGE OF ST BRENDAN by Benedeiz, an earlier, twelfth-century text about the adventures of an Irish monk who never got tired of looking for fantastic islands on his tiny boat. The anarchy and imagination of the Middle-Ages always seems more fantastic when we read the original medieval authors directly.
This is a medieval best-seller for all.
Rating: 4
Summary: The curious history of John Mandeville
Comment: Sir John Mandeville was an Early-Renaissance writer of travel tales similar in content and style to his famous near-contemporary, Marco Polo. But history has judged these two men quite differently: whereas Marco Polo has become a household word, synonymous with bold explorations, Mandeville has been largely forgotten. But it was not always so.
During his lifetime, and for a couple of centuries afterwards, Mandeville was by far the more famous of the two. A copy of Mandeville - but not Polo - was in the possession of Leonardo da Vinci. More telling, about 300 manuscripts (hand-written copies) of Mandeville survive, compared to only about 70 of Polo.
What accounts for Mandeville's reversals of fortune?
Mandeville (or someone calling himself that) wrote his book about 1356, or shortly thereafter. Its original tile was "The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight," but is now generally known as "Travels of Sir John Mandeville." Polo's book, originally titled, "Descriptions of the World," came out about 1300. Whereas Mandeville wrote his book himself, Polo used the services of a professional writer, Rusticello, who in turn based the book on Polo's notebooks. (Mandeville is the better written.)
Standards of what constitutes a historical/geographic work have greatly changed. Both books -- but especially Mandeville -- contain a fascinating pastiche of facts (often distorted), impressions, opinions, and utterly fantastic claims. Reading Mandeville today, one is left with a bewildering farrago of National Geographic and supermarket tabloids.
As the Age of Exploration progressed, reliable geographic, historic, and economic data came to be more highly valued than fantastic tales. Since Polo's book was found to be the more reliable its reputation increased. Mandeville, on the other hand, came to be seen as a "teller of tall tales," a kind of Baron Munchhausen.
Indeed, today many historians question whether the man "Mandeville" really existed. Most believe that the person who wrote "Mandeville" never actually traveled to the placed he describes, and obtained his material from other sources. He took the identity of "Sir John Mandeville" to bolster his credibility. (Recently there have been attempts to "rehabilitate" Mandeville.)
What is their relevance today? Except in a narrow historical context, I would say that Mandeville is definitely the more interesting. What Mandeville lacks in historic and geographic accuracy, he more than makes up by his insight into what continually fascinates mankind - both then and now. A considerable portion of Mandeville can be fairly equated to today's Elvis sightings, or to the woman from Ohio who has the spaceman's baby. We are too immersed in our contemporary world to clearly see what is behind such phenomena; but looking back at Mandeville's world our vision greatly improves. Consider:
Mandeville tells of a society in which women often have snakes in their ...uhm...private parts. In order to protect themselves their men hire the services of professional "testers." As absurd as this all sounds, could Mandeville actually be describing some venereal disease?
Another example: could the various human monstrosities described by Mandeville (people with dog's heads, etc.) have modern counterparts in television's Star Trek?
The Penguin book would be improved by additional maps and illustrations -- unfortunately this would increase the cost.
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Title: The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo, Ronald Latham ISBN: 0140440577 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: September, 1958 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Adventures of Ibn Battuta : A Muslim Traveller of the 14th Century by Ross E. Dunn ISBN: 0520067436 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: April, 1990 List Price(USD): $17.59 |
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Title: The Travels of Friar Odoric: 14th Century Journal of the Blessed Odoric of Pordenone by Odoric of Pordenone, Paolo Chiesa ISBN: 0802849636 Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pub. Date: 15 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, the World's Greatest Traveller by Giles Milton ISBN: 031242129X Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Journey Through Wales and the Description of Wales by Giraldus Cambrensis, Lewis Thorpe, Gerald of Wales, Lewis Thrope, Giraldus ISBN: 0140443398 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1978 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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