The Defective Version of Mandeville's Travels

An edition of the earliest and most important English translation of the French text of Mandeville's Travels, the widely influential collection of travellers' tales. This volume also contains a full commentary with new information about the sources. Its name derives from the loss of the second quire in the Insular manuscript, or its antecedent, from which it was translated. Despite this loss, the Defective Version established itself as the dominant form of the work in England, and was perpetuated in the printed editions of the text until 1725.