The Book of John Mandeville

A contemporary bestseller, providing readers with exotic information about locales from Constantinople to China and about the social and religious practices of peoples such as the Greeks, Muslims and Brahmins.

The Book of John Mandeville comprises a fourteenth-century bestseller of the Middle Ages, providing European readers with exoticized information regarding Constantinople, China, and the religious practices of Eastern Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Despite the fact that its supposed author, Sir John Mandeville, is a fictional construct, hundreds of manuscript copies of the work still exist, testifying to its runaway popularity. Distributed in the original French as well as English and Latin, The Book of John Mandeville has had an outsized and enduring influence on later European orientalism, being consulted often by prominent figures like Christopher Columbus and Sir Walter Raleigh. This edition, based on British Library MS Royal 17 C., introduces readers to one of the most popular Middle English versions of the story, in a manner accessible to readers both new and familiar with medieval travel narratives.