The Travels of Marco Polo: Introduction by Colin Thubron [Hardcover]

Now in a handsome and newly revised hardcover edition: the extraordinary travelogue that has enthralled readers for more than seven centuries.

 

Marco Polo’s vivid descriptions of the splendid cities and people he encountered on his journey along the Silk Road through the Middle East, South Asia, and China opened a window for his Western readers onto the fascinations of the East and continued to grow in popularity over the succeeding centuries. To a contemporary audience, his colorful stories—and above all, his breathtaking description of the court of the great Kublai Khan, Mongol emperor of China—offer dazzling portraits of worlds long gone.

 

The classic Marsden and Wright translation ofThe Travelshas been revised and updated by Peter Harris, with new notes, a bibliography, and an introduction by award-winning travel writer Colin Thubron.

Marco Polowas born in Venice in 1254 and died circa 1324.

Peter Harrisis the editor of the Everyman’s Pocket Poets volumeZen Poems.

Colin Thubronis an award-winning author of novels and travel books, includingBehind the Wall: A Journey through ChinaandShadow of the Silk Road.I N T R O D U C T I O N
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Of all the travel sagas ever written, none is more richly astonishing than Marco Polo's Description of the World. It records a land of such fabulous difference that to enter it was like passing through a mirror; and it is this passage - from a still-provincial Europe to an empire of brilliant strangeness - which gives the tale even now a dream-like quality. Even in its day - and for generations afterwards - Polo's book was often regarded merely as the fairy-tale conceit of a vainglorious merchant. Only with time has its portrait of China at the height of the Mongol dynasty - a portrait rich in details which once seemed too outlandish to be believed - been largely corroborated.

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