SOURCE: "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville," in The Boston Public Library Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 4, October, 1950, pp. 307-16.

In the following essay, Haraszti provides an overview of Mandeville's Travels, remarking on the subjects treated in the account, the identity of its author, and the work's sources and textual history.

At the Kreisler Sale held in New York on January 1949 the Boston Public Library acquired a number of extremely valuable fifteenth-century and other early printed books. One of the most valuable among them was a copy of the German translation of the Travels of John Mandeville—Reysen und Wanderschafften durch das Gelobte Land—printed by Anton Sorg in Augsburg in 1481.¹ This was believed to be the first appearance of the German text in print until Professor Schramm called attention to an earlier, undated edition by Sorg, probably printed in 1478, an imperfect copy of which he had discovered at Munich...