M.
C. Seymour, ed.
The Defective Version of Mandeville's Travels.
Oxford
U.P. for the Early English Text Society, 2002.
Original Series 319.
xxx,234pp.
Hardback ISBN
0197223222, £50.00.
Publisher's
recommended price £50.00
This is
the first
critical edition of the earliest and most important English translation
of Mandeville's Travels. Its title, the 'Defective Version',
derives
from the loss of the second quire in the Anglo-French 'Insular'
manuscript,
or its antecedent, from which it was translated, containing part of the
description of Egypt. Despite this loss of text, the Defective Version
established itself as the dominant form of the work in England, and was
perpetuated in the printed editions of the text until 1725.
This
new edition
is based on examination of all the extant manuscripts of the Middle
English
text and its French source, and so makes possible a more informed
assessment
of all other English versions. The textual commentary is based on a
fresh
investigation of the sources, and offers details for the first time of
the author's indirect reliance on Marco Polo for much of his Asian
relation.
This
is the third
in a proposed series of four versions of this widely influential
collection
of travellers' tales. M. C. Seymour has previously edited The
Bodley
Version of Mandeville's Travels and The Metrical Version of
Mandeville's
Travels
for
the Society. |
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