Excerpt from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and the Translation of the New TestamentJohn mandeville has usually been called the father of English prose, but probably this title should be transferred to Wycliffe. Recent investigations have shown that the English version of the Travels was not made by the original author, the words at the end of the prologue attributing it to him being a palpable interpolation. Even that there. Was such a man as John Mandeville seems to be a matter of doubt. Nothing is known of him outside of his book, and the personal adventures recorded in his narrative must be regarded mainly as ingenious fabrications for weaving together the stories of other writers and travelers. Ouly'a small portion of the book could have been written from personal experience the description of Egypt and the Holy Land bears evidence of some direct knowledge of the facts, and the prologue seems to indicate that the original intention was limited to a description of the objects of popular pilgrimages of the time the account of marvels in the farther East was probably an after thought.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.