xxii 263 page, indexed. Edited with modernized spelling and introduction by M.C. Seymour. The jacket is lightly shelf stained and chipped at the edges, including the head and tail of the spine, the body of the book is immaculate - clean, unmarked and solid. "Sir John Mandeville is the supposed author of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, a travel memoir which first circulated between 1357 and 1371. The earliest-surviving text is in French. By aid of translations into many other languages, the work 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 "Travels" In his preface, the compiler calls himself a knight, and states that he was born and bred in England, in the town of St Albans. Although the book is real, it is widely believed that "Sir John Mandeville" himself was not.....According to the book, John de Mandeville crossed the sea in 1322. He traversed by way of Turkey (Asia Minor and Cilicia), Tartary, Persia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, Chaldea, Amazonia, India and many countries about India. He had often been to Jerusalem, and had written in Romance languages as they were generally more widely understood than Latin." (Wikipedia)