Sir John Mandeville

Sir John Mandeville 14th-century English author of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. Originally written in Norman French, the work became enormously popular and was translated into English, Latin, and most European languages. It purports to recount the author's travels through Jerusalem, Egypt, Turkistan, India, China, and other places. Actually it is a skillful compilation from the recorded travels of other people—e.g., Marco Polo, Ordoric of Pordenone, and William of Boldensele—into which Mandeville interpolated extravagant details of medieval lore. Many scholars believe that Mandeville was a pseudonym and that the work was written by Jean de Bourgogne (or Jean à la Barbe), physician of Liège, or by Jean d'Outremeuse (1338-1400), citizen of Liège and composer of fabulous history. A growing number of scholars, however, contest that the book was composed, as reported in the text, by John Mandeville. Biographical details are not wholly clear, but he seems to have been born at St. Albans in the late 13th cent., to have spent the prime of his life on the Continent, and to have completed the book by 1356 as a travel romance, rather than as an authentic account. For a lucid discussion of the whole scholarly problem and of Mandeville's artistry, see J. W. Bennett, The Rediscovery of Sir John Mandeville (1954).

Mandeville, Sir John, the ostensible author of the famous travel book which is found in many European languages after its first appearance in Anglo-Norman French in 1356–7, the first English manuscript probably coming from Lincolnshire c.1375. Until J. W. Bennett's The Rediscovery of Sir John Mandeville (1954), Jean d'Outremeuse, a historian from Liège, was believed to be the writer of the work. The book purports to be an account of the author's journeys in the East, but it is really a compilation, drawn especially from William of Boldensele and Friar Odoric of Pordenone, and from the Speculum Majus of Vincent of Beauvais. It claims to be a guide, both geographical and ethical, for pilgrims to the Holy Land, but it carries the reader far off course, to Turkey, Tartary, Persia, Egypt, and India. It is a highly entertaining work, combining geography and natural history with romance and marvels, such as the fountain of youth and the ant-hills of gold-dust. It was an important influence on subsequent English writers from Chaucer to Shakespeare, and was the prototype in English of the popular genre of the fabulous travel book.