John Mandeville

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville or Mandeville's Travels is a book written between 1357 and 1371 that purports to be the travelogue of an Englishman named Sir John Mandeville around the world through many fanstastical locations. The earliest-surviving text is in French, followed by translations into many other languages; the work acquired extraordinary popularity. Despite the extremely unreliable and often fantastical nature of the travels it describes, it was used as a work of reference: Christopher Columbus, for example, was heavily influenced by both this work and Marco Polo's earlier Travels.