The Voyages and Travels

Before even opening the cover, this is an interesting little book. I say little, because it is a very small edition, with very small text -quite hard to read actually! This edition is published in 1886, and is part of “Cassell's National Library” - there is a list at the rear which puts this book in the company of Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, Mungo Park, Herodotus, Richard Hakluyt, and an even wider range of ‘travel and adventure' publications.The cover isn't leather, but it is woven textile, the spine of which has taken some damage, but is nevertheless an attractive book.Moving on to the content - Sir John Maundeville (Mandeville in many of the other editions) is a somewhat controversial figure in history. There is much speculation into whether he existed at all, or whether this is a pen name. The contents has been described as unreliable at best, falsified, copied and made up at worst.I can't make any valuable contribution to the authenticity of the writing, but my take on this edition (there are over a hundred, with a number of editors, translators etc) is that once you start reading, there is no surprise that this book dates from 1886. It is fairly hard to read, with clunky narative and complex sentence structure / syntax, and some obscure references. It isn't just the tiny font I battled with.It is however, an interesting read. It starts off in Europe, and reads as fairly legitimate. He describes people, places, customs and cultures. As he heads further way from Europe, he starts to introduce the absurd - dog-headed men, an island of men with giant ears, an island of people who hopped around on one giant foot... but then he seems to get giraffes and crocodiles right. The writing style is very reminiscent of Marco Polo, who frustrated everyone with the continued repeating of certain lines: “I will now tell you” and “I have now told you.” Maundeville's repetitive opener is “And you shall understand...” or “But you must understand that...” and he isn't afraid of a bit of “Now I will return to tell you of...“There is also a whole lot of religion in here, and it gets pretty preachy. Not my thing at all. But it is explained in the Maundeville apparently provided a copy of his manuscript to the Pope with the hope of receiving some sort of official recognition, so there is an ulterior motive for all the preaching.Worth noting also that I have read Giles Milton's [b:The Riddle and the Knight: In search of Sir John Mandeville 983948 The Riddle and the Knight In search of Sir John Mandeville Giles Milton https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1419183066l/983948.SY75.jpg 969458], which tries to decipher the fact from the fiction. It would have been interesting to read them side by side - but I have lost the recollection of the detail of Milton's book to draw any conclusion. I do recall Milton was convinced that ‘dog face men' were baboons, and giant snails were giant tortoises, there were others.Hard one to put stars on. The entertaining bits were very entertaining, the hard to read parts were pretty punishing. I am settling for middle ground on 3 stars.