The first stop on Marco Polo’s journey, which took place in 1271, was in China. After that, he was Kublai Khan’s representative on a number of diplomatic missions throughout the Far East. His subsequent account of his travels offers a fascinating glimpse of what he encountered abroad, including foreign religions, new customs and societies, the spices and silks of the East, and the precious gems, exotic vegetation, and wild beasts of faraway lands. The book by Marco Polo, considered one of the best travel accounts ever written due to its ability to vividly and immediately bring to life a world that has been long gone, revolutionized Western ideas about the East, which were unknown at the time. The new translation by Nigel Cliff is a contemporary and authoritative rendering based on the original medieval sources. It also includes a lively introduction and notes.
Over the course of more than seventy years, Penguin has maintained its position as the preeminent publisher of works of canonical literature in the global English-speaking market. Penguin Classics has more than 1,700 titles and represents a global bookshelf of the most important and influential works from all time periods, literary traditions, academic fields, and other categories. Readers have faith that the series will provide authoritative texts that have been augmented by introductions and notes written by renowned academics and contemporary authors, in addition to translations that have been brought up to date by translators who have won awards.
