The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville Beyond The Holy Land -

(Berkeley, CA): Foolscap Press, 2019. Gotthold, Peggy. The tale of Mandeville's travels in search of the fabled Prester John is at once an ethnographic study, religious treatise, and heroic narrative. The pages feature elaborate borders of gilt vines and all manner of creatures and vessels: hippos, parrots, Eastern ships, giants, dwarfs, and anthropophagi. Each chapter begins with a three-line illuminated initial, with an additional oversized initial introducing the text and a six-line initial opening the first chapter. The interleaved maps carry the reader along Mandeville's journey, through the Middle East and into China and India, following the geographic beliefs of the Medieval period. The text of this edition is based off the Cotton MS, and abridges Mandeville's initial travels through Europe and the Holy Land to devote itself to his writings of the Asian continent.

Quarto. (x), 64pp., + 5 full-page maps. One of 90 copies, signed by the printer, Lawrence G. Van Velzer, and the illustrator, Peggy Gotthold. Bound with vellum ties and red paper covers. Paste-downs feature Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, Saracen, Persian, and Chaldean alphabets. Mint in clamshell box.