Publisher's Synopsis
Volume I: 'Translated and Edited with a Preliminary Essay on the Intercourse between China and the Western Nations previous to the Discovery of the Cape Route'. Containing the travels of Friar Odoric of Pordenone, 1316-30, and letters and reports from missionary friars from Cathay and India, 1292-1338, in English translation. With a list of 'illustrations from drawings by the author'. The supplementary material includes the 1866 annual report. Volume II: Contains contemporary notices of Cathay under the Mongols, from Rashiduddin; Pegolotti's notices of the land route to Cathay and of Asiatic trade in the fourteenth century; Marignolli's recollections of eastern travel; Ibn Battuta's travels in Bengal and China; the journey of Benedict Goës from Agra to Cathay; all in English translation, with Latin and Italian texts of Odoric's narrative. For a revised version of the whole work, see Second Series 33, 37, 38, 41. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volumes first published in 1866.
