Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Edinburgh Review, Vol. 135: Or Critical Journal; For January, 1872;;; April, 1872
The attempt has often been made before to bring Marco Polo into notice. According to a list, indeed, compiled by Colonel Yule, and given in the appendix to his work, twenty seven different editions of these travels have been published in various European languages during the last four centuries; and although the majority of such editions have been mere reproductions or translations of a faulty text without any serious effort at emendation or explanation, still in some in stances - as in the Italian editions of baldello-boni, of Lazari, and of Adolfo Bartolifisound and able criticism has been exerted, by which Colonel Yule has duly profited; and more over, in two particular instances - the Engligh edition of Mars den, published in 1818, and the French edition of Pauthier, published in 1865 - illustration has been added of a compre hensive, if not a very scholarly, character. Marsden's edition of Marco Polo, ' an honest and unpretentious work, represents the knowledge, or rather the want of knowledge, of Sixty Years since.' Pauthier's edition, with very much more of pretension, is hardly an improvement on Marsden in regard to the historical or geographical illustration of Western and Central Asia; though it must be admitted that his Chinese learning stands him in good stead, and has enabled him to fur nish many valuable extracts from original sources, relating to Eastern Asia, in support or explanation of Marco Polo's own notices. At any rate, we think the general impression will be, on comparing the baldness and inaccuracy of previous editors with the stores of solid, as well as curious, information poured forth by Colonel Yule with an unsparing hand, that the edition we are now considering was imperatively called for.
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