Immediately popular when they first appeared around 1356, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville became the standard account of the East for several centuries. Ostensibly written by an English knight, the Travels purport to relate his experiences in the Holy Land, Egypt, India and China. Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khan's army, and to have travelled in 'the lands beyond' - countries populated by dog-headed men, cannibals, Amazons and Pygmies. Although Marco Polo's slightly earlier narrative ultimately proved more factually accurate, Mandeville's was widely known, used by Columbus, Leonardo do Vinci and Martin Frobisher, and inspired writers as diverse as Swift, Defoe and Coleridge. This intriguing blend of fact, exaggeration and absurdity offers both fascinating insight into and subtle criticism of fourteenth-century conceptions of the world.

Sir John Mandeville claimed in his book to be an English knight who began his travels in 1322, but the book was originally written in French, and the truth of the author-'s identity-ùand whether in fact he actually traveled-ùis not known.
C.W.R.D. Moseley has taught Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge for many years.