Author:John Mandeville,Charles Moseley
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 da Vinci and Martin Frobisher, and inspiring 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.
Wonderfully compelling... Deeply moving
—— Sunday TimesA wonderous tale, beautifully told...mesmerising, poignant and almost incredible
—— New York TimesMeticulous and fascinating... Inspiring reading
—— SpectatorExtraordinary on many counts... It has taken the tireless detective work of Tom Reiss to uncover the real Lev Nussimbaum
—— Sunday TimesA highly entertaining biography of a very unusual person
—— Literary ReviewAn extraordinary tale of reinvention
—— GuardianFunny, exactly observed and humane
—— Daily TelegraphA highly enjoyable mingling of scholarship and sleuthing that elegantly solves the puzzle of one of the Twentieth Century's most mysterious writers
—— Paul TherouxA remarkable story of East meeting West, and the fantastic historical figure who stood astride both worlds, during an almost equally fantastic moment in time. This is history and biography that reads like a great novel
—— Kevin Baker, author of Paradise AlleyHe has a sharp eye for incongruities, and peppers the book with entertaining footnotes
—— Sunday Telegraph