hly interesting: The English version was made from a
"mutilated archetype," in French (Warner, p. x.) of the beginning of the
15th century, and was used for all the known English manuscripts, with the
exception of the Cotton and Egerton volumes--and also for all the printed
editions until 1725. Mr. Nicholson[23] pointed out that it is defective
in the passage extending from p. 36, l. 7: "And there were to ben 5
Soudans," to p. 62, l. 25: "the Monkes of the Abbeye of ten tyme," in
Halliwell's edition (1839) from Titus C. xvi, which corresponds to Mr.
Warner's Egerton text, p. 18, l. 21: "for the Sowdan," and p. 32, l. 16,
"synges oft tyme." It is this bad text which, until 1725,[24] has been
printed as we just said, with numerous variants, including the poor
edition of Mr. Ashton[25] who has given the text of East instead of the
Cotton text under the pretext that the latter was not legible.[26]

Two revisions of the English version were made during the first quarter of
the 15th century; one is represented by the British Museum Egerton MS.
1982 and the abbreviated Bodleian MS. e. Mus. 116; the other by the Cotton
MS. Titus C. xvi. This last one gives the text of the edition of 1725
often reprinted till Halliwell's (1839 and 1866).[27] The Egerton MS.
1982 has been reproduced in a magnificent volume edited in 1889 for the
Roxburghe Club par Mr. G.F. Warner, of the British Museum;[28] this
edition includes also the French text from the Harley MS. 4383 which,
being defective from the middle of chap. xxii. has been completed with the
Royal MS. 20 B.X. Indeed the Egerton MS. 1982 is the only complete
English manuscript of the British Museum,[29] as, besides seven copies of
the defective text, three leaves are missing in the Cotton MS. after f.
53, the text of the edition of 1725 having been completed with the Royal
MS. 17 B.[30]

Notwithstanding its great popularity, Mandeville's Book could not fail to
strike with its similarity with other books of travels, with Friar Odoric's
among others. This similarity has been the cause that occasionally the
Franciscan Friar was given as a companion to the Knight of St. Albans, for
instance, in the manuscripts of Mayence and Wolfenbuettel.[31] Some
Commentators have gone too far in their appreciation and the Udine monk has
been treated either as a plagiary or a liar! Old Samuel Purchas, in his
address to the Reader printed at the beginning of Marco Polo's text (p.
65), calls his countryma