Ser Marco Polo: Notes and Addenda to Sir Henry Yule’s Edition, Containing the Results of Recent Research and Discovery.

CORDIER, Henri.

Item Number: 90448

London: John Murray, 1920.

First edition of French historian Henri Cordier’s supplement to Yule’s important work which correlated Polo’s travels with their present-day locations. Octavo, original green cloth with elaborate tooling to the spine stamped in blue, blue spine labels lettered in gilt, vignette of the giant elephant bird which Polo described in his original account, frontispiece. Near fine in the rare original dust jacket which is in very good condition.

Venetian merchant and explorer Marco Polo's travels were first recorded in his Livre des merveilles du monde (Book of the Marvels of the World, also known as The Travels of Marco Polo, c. 1300), a book that described to Europeans the wealth and great size of China, its capital Peking, and other Asian cities and countries. Centuries later, Scottish Orientalist Henry Yule's most important contribution was in clarifying Polo's routes by identifying and matching the medieval geographic place names used by Polo and his transcribers with their actual present-day locations and names. Cordier's supplement contains new information obtained as a result of voyages undertaken by Sir Aurel Atein, Scen Hedin, Pelliot and others.