Cabinet 16: Contested Authorship

The identity of Sir John Mandeville has never been verified and is likely a pseudonym used to present the narrator of the work as a type of Everyman figure. The narrator claims to be an Englishman from St Alban’s, and although there is indeed a commemorative statue at St Alban’s, this was erected only on the basis that the book was correct in its assertion.

The Voiage and Travayle of Sir John Maundeville, Knight: Which Treateth of the Way Toward Hierusalem and of Marvayles of Inde with Other Ilands and Countreys, edited by John Ashton (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1887) Special Collections G 370 M29 1887