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Published by The Folio Society, London,, 1994
Seller: lamdha books, Wentworth Falls, NSW, Australia
Reprint: royal octavo; hardcover, quarter bound in full cloth boards with gilt rules and spine titling and endpaper maps; 310pp, top edges dyed red, with a colour frontispiece and 11 plates likewise. Minor wear; spine mildly faded. Very good to near fine in a like slipcase. Postage quoted is for a standard format octavo book. Final charges may vary depending on size and weight. Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kublai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. On his return to the West, he was made a prisoner of war and met Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he collaborated on this book. The accounts of his travels provide a fascinating glimpse of the different societies he encountered: their religions, customs, ceremonies and way of life; on the spices and silks of the East; on precious gems, exotic vegetation and wild beasts. He tells the story of the holy shoemaker, the wicked caliph and the three kings, among a great many others, evoking a remote and long-vanished world with colour and immediacy.