Mandeville
First circulated in the fourteenth century,
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville relates the adventures of an
English knight who travelled to the Holy Land, India, China and beyond.
Whether or not 'Mandeville' was who he claimed to be, or had visited
the places he described, the book was a bestseller of its day and
gives an unrivalled picture of the world as seen through medieval eyes
- a world round like our own, yet with Jerusalem at its centre,
where the real and the mythical exist side by side: crocodiles and dragons,
Tartar and Amazon warriors, the Dead Sea and a river flowing with
precious stones.
My new poetry collection, Mandeville, published by
Faber and Faber tells the story of Mandeville's journey round his world.
Reviews
(Click on the link to read the whole review.)
"Mesmerising... packed with wonderfully vivid and elaborate descriptions,
sometimes reminiscent of Byron, sometimes of Borges, of fabulous beasts and landscapes and
great Eastern warlords and potentates... an extraordinary achievement."
(Adam Phillips,
The Observer)
"The delicacy with which Francis confronts the issues thrown up by
his chosen subject in this fascinating, beautiful collection marks him out once
more as one of our most skilled,
intriguing and consistently ambitious poets." (Sarah Crown,
The Guardian)
"In its grandeur and strangeness, Mandeville prompts comparisons with Calvino." (Sean O'Brien,
The Sunday Times)
"When Keats first discovered Homer, he ended up on
'a peak in Darien' in sheer astonishment. The mental traveller of Mandeville remains
surrounded by magic carpet." (Jeremy Noel-Tod,
The Daily Telegraph)
"Phantasmagorical... an intriguing tribute." (Peggy Hughes,
The Scotsman)
Poems from Mandeville
Of the Phoenix
Of the Dead Sea
Of Ants that Dig for Gold
Mandeville's Farewell
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