A Knights Legacy Mandeville and Mandevillian Lore in Early Modern England [Hardcover]

The so-called Travels of Sir John Mandeville (c. 1356) was one of the most popular books of the late Middle-Ages. Translated into many European languages and widely circulating in both manuscript and printed forms, the pseudo English knight's account had a lasting influence on the voyages of discovery and durably affected Europe's perception of exotic lands and peoples.

The early modern period witnessed the slow erosion of Mandeville's prestige as an authority and the gradual development of new responses to his book. Some still supported the account's general claim to authenticity while questioning details here and there, and some openly denounced it as a hoax. After considering the general issues of edition and reception of Mandeville in an opening section, the volume moves on to explore theological and epistemological concerns in a second section, before tackling literary and dramatic reworkings in a final section.

Examining in detail a diverse range of texts and issues, these essays ultimately bear witness to the complexity of early modern engagements with a late medieval legacy which Mandeville emblematises.

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Abbreviations

Foreword

Mary Baine Campbell

Part I: Editions and Receptions

1. Mandeville in England: the early years Michael S. Seymour

2. 'Whet-stone leasings of old Maundevile': reading the Travels in early modern England Charles W. R. D. Moseley

3. Mandeville reviviscent: early modern travel tales Kenneth Parker

Part II: Mandevillian Ideologies

4. The four rivers of paradise: Mandeville and the Book of Genesis Leo Carruthers

5. Mandeville On Muhammad: texts, contexts and influence Matthew Dimmock

6. A 'science of dreams': 'the fantastic ethnography' of Sir Walter Ralegh and Baconian experimentalism Line Cottegnies

Part III: Mandevillian Stages

7. Marlowe's Tamburlaine: the well-travelled tyrant and some of hil