The Travels

The author was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kublai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. This book offers a fascinating glimpse of what he encountered abroad: unfamiliar religions, customs and societies.

A sparkling new translation of the most famous travel book ever written

Marco Polo’s voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China. Afterward, he served Kublai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions in the Far East. His subsequent account of his travels offers a fascinating glimpse of what he encountered abroad: unfamiliar religions; new customs and societies; the spices and silks of the East; the precious gems, exotic vegetation, and wild beasts of faraway lands. Evoking a remote and long-vanished world with color and immediacy, Marco Polo’s book revolutionized Western ideas about the then-unknown East and remains one of the greatest travel accounts of all time. Nigel Cliff’s new translation, based on the original medieval sources, is a fresh, authoritative rendering, with a lively introduction and notes.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.