IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
•
ORIGINAL PI:EFACE.
THE amount of appropriate material, and of acquaintance
with the medieval geography of some parts of Asia,
which was acquired during the compilation of a work of
kindred character for the Hakluyt Society,* could hardly
fail to suggest as a fresh labour in the same field the
preparation of a new English edition of Marco Polo.
Indeed one kindly critic (in the Examiner) laid it upon
the writer as a duty to undertake that task.
Though at least one respectable English edition has
appeared since Marsden's,t the latter has continued to be
the standard edition, and maintains not only its reputation
but its market value. It is indeed the work of a sagacious,
learned, and right-minded man, which can never be spoken
of otherwise than with respect. But since Marsden
published his quarto (1818) vast stores of new know-
ledge have become available in elucidation both of the
contents of Marco Polo's book and of its literary history.
The works of writers such as Klaproth, Abel Rémusat,
D'Avezac, Reinaud, Quatremére, Julien, I. J. Schmidt,
Gildemeister, Ritter, Hammer-Purgstall, Erdmann,
D'Ohsson, Defrémery, Elliot, Erskine, and many more,
which throw light directly or incidentally on Marco Polo,
have, for the most part, appeared since then. Nor, as
regards the literary history of the book, were any just views
possible at a time when what may be called the Foil/al
MSS. (in French) were unpublished and unexamined.
Besides the works which have thus occasionally or inci-
* Cathay and The TVay Thither, being a Collection of Minor Medieval Notices of China. London, 1866. The necessities of the case have required the repetition in the present work of the substance of some notes already printed (but hardly published) in the other.
t Viz. Mr. Hugh Murray's. I mean no disrespect to Mr. T. Wright's edition, but it is, and professes to be, scarcely other than a reproduction of Marsden's, with abridgment of his notes.
xxi
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.