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Second edition, the first practicably obtainable. One of the first travel narratives in print, the Mandeville adventures set the stage for all European accounts of encounters with the great civilizations of the East. One of only three copies traceable in commerce since the 1950s, this is a large copy, unwashed and unpressed, and in pleasing unsophisticated condition. The Voyages de Jehan de Mandeville chevalier, which appeared in manuscript in France c.1357, purports to be the personal account of Sir John Mandeville, born and bred in St Albans, who left England in 1322 and travelled the world for many years, serving the sultan of Cairo and visiting the Great Khan, and finally in 1357 in age and illness setting down his account of the world. That account covers his travels to the Middle East and Palestine in the first part, before he continues to India, Tibet, China, Java, and Sumatra, then returns westward via Arabia, Egypt, and North Africa. Most, if not all, of the narrative was assembled from other manuscript sources, plausibly by Jean le Long (d. 1388), the librarian of the Benedictine abbey church of St Bertin at St Omer, then within the English pale. Some of the narrative, including that part extending from Trebizond to Hormuz, recognizably depends on Odoric of Pordenone (1330; first published 1513). Though the framework of the narration by Sir John Mandeville is fictitious, the substance is not. There can be no doubt that the author reported in good Second edition, the first practicably obtainable. One of the first travel narratives in print, the Mandeville adventures set the stage for all European accounts of encounters with the great civilizations of the East. One of only three copies traceable in commerce since the 1950s, this is a large copy, unwashed and unpressed, and in pleasing unsophisticated condition. The Voyages de Jehan de Mandeville chevalier, which appeared in manuscript in France c.1357, purports to be the personal account of Sir John Mandeville, born and bred in St Albans, who left England in 1322 and travelled the world for many years, serving the sultan of Cairo and visiting the Great Khan, and finally in 1357 in age and illness setting down his account of the world. That account covers his travels to the Middle East and Palestine in the first part, before he continues to India, Tibet, China, Java, and Sumatra, then returns westward via Arabia, Egypt, and North Africa. Most, if not all, of the narrative was assembled from other manuscript sources, plausibly by Jean le Long (d. 1388), the librarian of the Benedictine abbey church of St Bertin at St Omer, then within the English pale. Some of the narrative, including that part extending from Trebizond to Hormuz, recognizably depends on Odoric of Pordenone (1330; first published 1513). Though the framework of the narration by Sir John Mandeville is fictitious, the substance is not. There can be no doubt that the author reported in good faith what his authorities recorded and that his book was seriously intended. Besides the French version and its recensions, there were translations (often more than one) into Latin, German, English, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Irish, Danish, and Czech. The authorship was not seriously questioned until the 17th century, by which time the narrative had long since helped form the European view of the East. This second edition is just preceded by the Zwolle edition of Pieter van Os, completed on 17 September 1483 (Goff M-159); both editions are in Latin. The Zwolle edition is unobtainable: only one copy is known, and no copy has appeared on the market in modern times. There is a gap in the printed output from Leeu's workshop from the late summer of 1482 to some point in 1483 when he begins again with a new font - the same font as used here. The colophon (fol. H8r) in the present work alludes to the Venetian origin of the matrix, and it may be that the hiatus in Leeu's output was because he took time to visit Venice personally to collect the type. At the same time and place, the same printer also published a Latin translation of the famous travels of Marco Polo. Provenance: a) with the ownership inscription to the front pastedown of B. de Crassier, most likely Baron Guillaume-Pascal de Crassier (1662-1751), collector in Liege, with a purchase date of 1712; with Latin notes in a different hand referring to Casimir Oudin's Commentarius de scriptoribus Ecclesiae antiquis (Leipzig 1722) on the front free endpaper; b) the US dealer William H. Schab (1888-1975), cat. 16, Fine Incunabula, item 63, 1951; c) the private collection of the English dealer Philip Robinson, his library sale, Sotheby's, 23 June 1988, lot 22, to Quaritch on behalf of; d) John Galvin, an Irish-Catholic Australian of Spanish descent and a multi-millionaire who founded Eastern Mining and Metals, with his 1988 inscription on the front pastedown gifting the book to his son Michael. Only two other copies are traceable in commerce since 1951: a shorter copy, also ex-Robinson, washed and pressed, lacking the initial blank, and bound in 20th-century red morocco gilt by Zaehnsdorf (last seen at auction with Christies, 13 Dec. 2017, lot 85); and the Donaueschingen copy, lacking the blank, wormhole throughout, affecting text, rebound in 19th-century glazed paper boards (Sotheby's, 1 July 1994, lot 204). READ MORE Chancery quarto (207 x 140 mm): A-F8 G6 H8; 62 leaves, unnumbered, complete with initial blank A1. Late 17th- or early 18th-century sheep, red morocco label. Housed in a brown quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Type 5:82G; 33 lines, initial spaces. Opening 5-line initial supplied in simple early penwork, early annotations and reading marks to over 100 pages and on the initial blank (see note); wormhole in lower outer corner of first four leaves, not affecting text, some light marginal damp-staining. Hain-Copinger no. 10644*; GW M20396; ISTC im00160000; Goff M-160; ILC 1524; IDL 3063; London, BMC IX, p. 37; Klebs, Incunabula scientifica et medica no. 652.3; Polain no. 2584; C. W. R. D. Mosley, "The Use of Sources", The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (

Itinerarius, often known as The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, is a travel memoir recounting the journeys of the fictional Sir John Mandeville. It provides detailed descriptions of the cultures and places he visited.