During Lovecraftian game scenarios, it is not uncommon for characters to stumble upon overflowing bookshelves where (usually nefarious) occultists store their prized collections of obscure works. Those personal libraries are places where Mythos investigators might stumble upon dangerous Tomes describing dark secrets of the Cthulhu Mythos … but those same shelves store many other, equally obscure, occult volumes that could pique the interest of searchers. Such non-Mythos books might even hold clues important to solving a mystery (since, not every plot needs to hinge on the dark machinations of the Unnatural).
Described below are a series of occult books that could conceivably adorn the bookshelves of the occultist or cult leader whose library the players force their way into … use them to spice up the experience of searching through musty stacks, or simply as “camouflage” for more dangerous books with similarly obscure titles which lurk waiting to be opened.
Credit: these descriptions were largely written by game writer and occult scholar L.T. Barker, with minor additions (and linked resources) by Cthulhu Reborn.
The list includes three categories of books:
Additional Details: consists of a commentary upon Prophetiae de Magnus Merlini
Author: None listed (referred to as “The Old Scholar of York”).
Language: English
Published: 15th Century
Physical Description: Crown sixteenmo, 5” x 3 ¼”; 256 pages. Unbound and tied with several lengths of black-dyed linen strips. The pages had been gathered and stitched in the past but the cord has been carefully removed.
An analysis of the so-called ‘Prophecy of Merlin’ from Geoffrey of Monmouth, focusing on interpreting the conflict between the red and white dragons as not simply of one between the British and the Saxons but forming a deeper pattern for all of British history. No author is given, though from comments made by the author identifies him as coming from York.
The author of this book seeks to explain the deeper mystical explanation behind the prophecy of Merlin as recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth, claiming it presents a microcosm for all of British history as a battle between dissent (the ‘Red Dragon’) and authority (the ‘White Dragon’). The author, unnamed but describing himself as elderly and coming from the city of York, is a Tudor partisan and attempts to frame recent events as part of a grand and on-going conflict, excusing the violence and repression of Henry’s rule with claims of divine sanction. The work is rambling but, as a successful test of a relevant (occult or hidden knowledge) skill reveals, it draws on an otherwise unknown edition of Monmouth, making it of great interest and possibly value.
While this particular early commentary is fictitious, there have been numerous books written about the political implications of the prophecies of Merlin as recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth. For example:
Additional Details: A collection of fragments of the Medieval version of sheet music.
Author: ???
Language: Latin?
Published: ???
Physical Description: Double folio, 34” x 26”
The collection includes several songs of rather dubious piety from Exham Priory.
TBD
Additional Details: an annotated version (hand-written Latin) of an Armenian language edition of an Ottoman bestiary.
Author: Unknown (anonymous).
Language: Armenian, with Latin annotations by hand.
Published: 1567.
Physical Description: Medium folio 18” x 11 ½”
TBD.
TBD. Book includes descriptions of a number of creatures from the Dreamlands.
Additional Details: also known as the Greater Key of Solomon (or sometimes just the Key of Solomon).
Author: Unknown / Anonymous
Published: It has been reliably established that this work pre-dates the Lesser Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis Regis), and was likely first published sometime in Renaissance Italy (probably during the 14th or 15th Century). This edition was published in Bruges (Belgium) at some later date.
Physical Description: 18” x 11” (medium folio) bound in scuffed black-dyed leather with brass clasps and corners. The clasps are engraved with the initials ‘G.N.’ and a curious image of a lidded eye. The printers mark reveals this to be from the Lucien Appertine press of Bruges though no date is given.
TBD
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While there are no scanned versions available of the 14th/15th Century “Lesser Key of Solomon”, there are later published versions which would be helpful sources of flavorful extracts or handouts:
Additional Details: also known by its Latin title “De Re Biblium Pseudomonarchia Daemonum”. Consists entirely of commentaries on an appendix to Johan Weyer’s 1577 book “De Praestigiis Dæmonum” (On The Tricks of Demons).
Author: None listed; it is possible this volume was self-published by the Spanish nobleman Juan-Carlo de Castaigne.
Language: Latin
Published: No publisher or date of publication given. Likely contemporary to the publication of the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (“False Monarchy of Demons”) itself, placing it towards the end of the 16th Century, between 1580 and 1600.
Physical Description: A crown octavo 7 ½” x 5”, 160 pages, in glossy red pigskin with brass hasps. The book is in the armorial binding of Juan-Carlo, Comte de Castaigne. No printer is given; possibly this was created for a private collection. The work is in excellent condition.
This is a commentary of the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (“The False Monarchy of Demons”) a section of Johann Weyer’s De Praestigiis Daemonum, which presents the names, powers, and rites associated with sixty-nine demonic entities. This commentary provides an analysis of each name along numerological and (relevant skill test against knowledge of occult traditions to recognize) Kabbalistic lines in order to aid the magician’s ability to summon and control these creatures.
This is a companion work to The False Monarchy of Demons, a guide to the summoning of sixty-nine demonic beings. This companion provides additional insights into the listed demons providing an analysis of the demon’s names (which this commentary points out were given them by God and therefore, as divinely ordained, they contain an element of divine magic) using numerology and Kabbalistic methods, with the intention of giving magicians greater insight and hopefully control over these beings. The reasoning given by the unnamed author is firmly rooted in the traditional understanding of these methods and seems sound, assuming one buys into these methods.
More information can be learned about Juan-Carlo de Castaigne if the reader is particularly knowledgeable about occult traditions (a further skill test at -40%) or is willing to devote considerable time to further research (two successful tests against a relevant skill). Either determines that Juan-Carlo de Castaigne was a Spainish noble, from Castaigne family line of Lombardy and Burgundy. The Castaignes were (and still are) a family of notorious occultists and no small fortune. Juan-Carlo, born 1567, is believed to have died in a shipwreck off the coast of west Corisca in 1604 fleeing an small contingent of Ottoman ships, supposedly pursuing him for acts of piracy along the coast of Tunisia.
This commentary did not ever exist in the real world, but the book of demonology it refers to definitely did exist, and a scanned version of its first edition may be found online:
Additional Details: title translates as “Cults of East Anglia.”
Author: Petrus Fladariam de Norwicum (Peter Flanders of Norwich)
Language: Latin
Published: Ronald Palmer and Sons Press, London in 1566.
Physical Description: Folio 20” x 12 ½”; 386 pages including about 40 plates. Stamped red leather with flaking gilt inlay, locked brass hasp (no key; a relevant Craft skill will be needed to safely open the lock, otherwise a STR test vs the lock’s STR of 6 will break it open but will cause visible and irreperable damage to the hasp).
At some point in the past, probably prior to this binding, the book has been submerged and the lower half the pages are water-stained and the lower half of the book bulges. A frontispiece gives the title as well as the author (Petrus Fladariam de Norwicum — Peter Flanders of Norwich) and a publication date of 1566. An (accidentally?) inverted printers mark indicates this work is from the Ronald Palmer and Sons Press of London.
This book is a survey of sects and dissident religions in East Anglia from the arrival of the Romans until the schism with the Roman Church and includes plates showing holy sites, religious symbols, and portraits of various religious dissenters and leaders. Much of the text is quoted from original sources, from Pytheas to the Foxe’s account of the Fires of Smithfield. Anyone skimming this work who makes a test against a relevant occult knowledge skill will notice that it includes lengthy quotations from the now-lost Cultus Britannici, a (likely fictional, almost certainly thought lost since the 16th century) work, infamous for its graphic description of human sacrifice and other vile acts.
This book is a historical account, consisting primarily of direction quotations from its sources, of various non-Christian and heretical Christian religious practices in East Anglia and adjacent counties. The work begins with (Roman summaries of) the Greek Pytheas of Massalia, who circumnavigated the British Isles around 330 BC, proceeds through Caesar and his contemporaries, to the reports of missionary monks serving Augustine of Canterbury, accounts of the Witch of Ely, the suppression of the Lollards, and finally the prosecution of heretics under Queen Mary.
The most disturbing section involves the accounts of pagan practices encountered by the missionaries under Augustine of Canterbury the late sixth and early seventh century. These reports are said to be taken from the now-thought-lost Cultus Britannici, a seventh century compilation of pagan religious practices including the orgiastic rites near Branodunum devoted to the “Many Breasted Mother of Great Milks” and human sacrifice to the “Brothers of the Sea” in Pritteluuella, and unspecified yet vile practices of a degenerate tribe living in the marshes south of Herewic (Harwich). These accounts include detailed descriptions of the rituals and activities of these pagans, much of which is disturbing even to the modern reader and includes, infanticide, incest, cannibalism, and cannibalism (though happily not simultaneously in any one group).
Since no copies of the Cultus Britannici are thought to survive, the value of this book might be substantial to the right buyer.
If the GM wishes, this book might contain a smattering of truth about Mythos horrors that persist in the region of East Anglia. If such information is included, the book becomes a minor Tome of Terror with statistics as follows:
In Latin. Study time: weeks. Occult (or similar skill) +4%, Unnatural +1%. SAN Lost 0/1D2.
Suggested Rituals: Summon Demon from the Depths (Deep One), Summon Winged Servant, “Contact the Many-Breasted Mother of the Holy Milk” (a ritual to establish mental contact with Shub-Niggurath, whose parameters the GM would need to design), “Underwater Breath” (a ritual to allow temporary ability to breathe underwater, whose parameters the GM would need to design).
Additional Details: The name translates as “Three Books of Occult Philosophy”. The book is a famous occult treatise.
Author: Cornelius Agrippa
Language: Latin
Published: Cologne, 1533
Physical Description: Crown quarto 10 ¾” x 7″. Contemporary vellum, waterstained at corners. Roman type. Title with woodcut portrait of the author. Letterpress astrological tables and woodcut figures, including 7 cuts showing the proportions and properties of the human body. Possibly restored at one time, with pages from a second copy substituted and the book rebound. Occasional handwritten annotations.
This famous Renaissance volume reconciles the philosophical reasoning of the day with the powers of magic and religion. The “three books” mentioned, each describe one type of magic: elemental, celestial, and intellectual.
The book outlines a theory of magick integrating beliefs about the four elements, traditional astrology, Jewish Kabbalah, numerology, angels, the names of God, scrying, alchemy, and ceremonial magic. It is a compilation of many arguments by hermetic scholars from the medieval era and before.
At least four copies of 1533 edition of the book is available as a scanned resources online:
Additional Details: The title translates as “On the Signs of Astronomy as applied to Medicine.”
Author: Jacobus Alkindus (a Latinized version of the Arabic name Yaʻqūb al-Kindī)
Language: Latin
Published: Hoefgen Press of Antwerp, dated to 1601.
Physical Description: Medium folio 18″ x 11 ½”; 216 pages. A buffed calf-skin binding with tarnished copper hasps and ornamentation. A title page bears the publisher’s mark. The work, by one Jacobus Alkindus, is in excellent condition and appears to have never been opened.
This is a Latin translation of the Arabic philosopher Al-Kindi’s writings on the influence of heavenly bodies on health. Al-Kindi ascribes several overlapping layers of influence to the stars, astrological alignments, lunar, and solar cycles, each with their own sphere or spheres of influence for human and even animal health. The author places the influence of the planets and their dominion over the humors to be the foremost power over human health.
This work outlines the various effects that astronomical and celestial bodies have on the human body. The planets control the four humors – Mercury and Venus the yellow bile, Mars the blood, Jupiter the phlegm, and Saturn the black bile. Zodiacal birth signs in turn influence the likely health of illness of particular organs. Likewise the illness of these organs can be remedies by plants that associated with opposing planets and signs.
Additional Details: This is a monastic manuscript version of this book, whose title translates as “Dispute between the civil and the ecclesiastical powers”.
Author: William of Ockham, known in modern times as the inventor of “Ockham’s Razor”.
Language: Latin.
Published: 1430s
Physical Description: TBD
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Additional Details: This book is a monastic manuscript version of de Hampole’s mystical writings. The title translates as “The Fire of Love”.
Author: Richard Rolle de Hampole.
Language: Latin
Published: 1450s
Physical Description: TBD
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While there are no available scans of the original 1450s manuscript, there are scans of later published versions which would be helpful sources of flavorful extracts or handouts:
Author: Teseo Ambrogio degli Albonesi, an Italian scholar who taught Syriac and other Near East languages.
Language: Latin and numerous Levantine languages.
Published: Published by G.M. Simonetta in Pavia, Italy, 1539.
Physical Description: Medium quarto, 11 ½ x 9. Bound in gilded white calf with partial title given on spine. Text is in Latin and several exotic scripts (a relevant skill or characteristic roll, or simple research, will determine them as near-Eastern scripts). There is a spilt in the binding inside the front cover; it is otherwise in good condition. This edition was printed in 1539.
This is an instructional text, intended to introduce the reader several near-Eastern languages and scripts including Aramaic, Armenian, and Syriac. Stuffed into the rear of the book are about twenty loose pages containing what appears to be someone practicing writing in Aramaic.
This is a grammar and primer for near-Eastern language, instructing readers in the scripts, grammar, and vocabulary for Aramaic, Armenian, Syriac, Chaldean, and Mandiac. A few marginal annotations suggest the owner was using this primarily for Aramaic and Armenian. The loose pages contain copied passages from Genesis in English and Aramaic.
There are at least two scanned versions available of the 1539 edition of “Introductio”:
Additional Details: also known as “The Sworn Book of Honorius”.
Author: “Honorius of Thebes”, possibly a mythical figure from the Middle Ages. According to the book, he is “the son of Euclid, master of the Thebians”.
Language: Latin
Published: No details recorded, but condition would suggest this hand-written edition was copied some time in the early- or mid-16th Century.
Physical Description: A manuscript edition of this well-known 15th Century magic book. Written on 82 folio pages (7 ½” x 5 ½”) with gatherings of four leaves. Pen drawings throughout, chapter headings in red, blue or green. Fly-leaf bears the initials ‘H.W.’
A medieval grimoire purportedly written by Honorius of Thebes (about whom, little is known). The text is believed to have been created in the 13th or 14th Centuries (the earliest reliable reference to it is in 1347); it was passed down through many manuscripts over the next centuries, with a copy of a 14th or 15th century manuscript known to have been in the library of Dr. John Dee.
This book purports to be a secret text which preserves, in 93 chapters, the magic of King Solomon, which was (at the time of writing) under heavy religious persecution and suppression. It describes a complete system for the practicing of ritual magick, including methods of attaining divine visions, means of communing with holy angels, methods for saving one’s soul from Purgatory, and rituals to control spirits of the air, earth, and infernal regions. Certain of its teaching — such as the use of a magical whistle to aid the summoning of certain spirits — have been borrowed by other occult sources, but many of its elaborate rituals and seals are unique.
There is an English-translated version of this book shared free online:
Additional Details: This is a (fictional) monastic version of Bacon’s (very real) summary of his Opus Majus. The title “Opus Majus” translates as “Greater Work” while the Opus Minus (written shortly afterwards) means “Lesser Work”.
Author: Roger Bacon
Language: Middle English
Published: 1506
Physical Description: Royal quarto 12½” x 10″.
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Additional Details: Full title is “The Discoverie of Witchcraft, wherein the Lewde dealing of Witches and Witchmongers is notablie detected, in sixteen books … whereunto is added a Treatise upon the Nature and Substance of Spirits and Devils”. It is believed that Shakespeare drew upon this book when depicting the witches in Macbeth.
Author: Reginald Scot, an English gentleman. First published c. 1584.
Language: English
Published: This version published in Bruges (Belgium), date unknown.
Physical Description: 18” x 11” (medium folio) bound in scuffed black-dyed leather with brass clasps and corners. The clasps are engraved with the initials ‘G.N.’ and a curious image of a lidded eye. The printers mark reveals this to be from the Lucien Appertine press of Bruges though no date is given.
(Anyone making a skill test relating to Occult knowledge, will already know the following without skimming the text.) This work is a skeptical account of the claims of witchcraft and the supernatural. The author claims that accounts of witchcraft are almost entirely caused by delusion or deception and that witches were almost uniformly innocent. While the author does not dismiss all occult forces or displays, Scot suggests that the belief in witchcraft and witchcraft scares were propagated by the Roman Catholic Church and various misinformed authors.
Scot presents a thorough debunking of witchcraft based on the study of dozens of authors, both modern and classical, as well as his investigation into numerous witch trials in Great Britain. Scot suggests that alleged witches were usually elderly or unpopular locals and not evil magicians. He goes on to claim that magic itself was almost always either fakery or delusion, heaping scorn on self-appointed witch-hunters and their allies. He blames the belief in witchcraft on the Catholic Church and its teachers, citing it as another example of that institution’s perversion of the true Christian faith. This is a version of the expanded 1665 edition, though apparently a rogue printing, likely done in the years immediately after that edition was released as the typesetting has been sloppily done with frequent typographical errors and, in at least two cases, passages of text inverted on the page.
There is a scanned versions available of the 16th Century “Discoverie of Witchcraft”:
There are also scans of later published versions which would be helpful sources of flavorful extracts or handouts:
Additional Details: contents of the book described in this Wikipedia entry, along with some photographs of pages from the 1641 first edition.
Author: Nicolaes Tulp (cited as Nicholas Tulpius on the book’s title page)
Language: Latin
Published: 1641 by Daniel Elzevir, Amsterdam
Physical Description: Quarto volume with an elaborately engraved frontispiece. 392 pages.
This work collects the cases and observations of the Dutch physician Nicoleas Tulp, of Amsterdam.
Tulp, a well-known physician and teacher from Amsterdam, collated 200 detailed case histories covering the full range of medical knowledge and practice available in the era. A curiously high proportion of the conditions that he covers relate to some form of headache. It also contains many disturbing descriptions of growths or carcinomas discovered inside patients. In addition to describing the treatment and diagnosis of conditions, Tulp also describes some of the strange creatures that had been brought back on Dutch East India Company ships from the colonies in Indonesia. Of particular note is the “Indian Satyr”, an intelligent-seeming simian creature depicted in a sitting pose. Curiously the accompanying text suggests the creature came from Angola in northern Africa.
While there are no scanned versions available of the 1641 publication of “Observationes Medicae”, there are later published versions which would be helpful sources of flavorful extracts or handouts:
Additional Details: The title of this book, written by Albertus Magnus (also known as Saint Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne), translates as “Questions concerning (Aristotle’s) On Animals”
Author: Albertus Magnus.
Language: Latin.
Published: None noted, probably early 15th century.
Physical Description: A slightly irregular folio manuscript, 17 ¾” x 12” of once-bound pages gathered with cotton strips and held in a dark-brown leather cover held shut with cords and with the title “ALB.MAG.ANIMALI” in gilt on the spine. About 500 pages. The text written in a somewhat amateurish Chancery hand, suggesting that this work was created by a student rather than a practiced scribe. There are annotations in at least four different hands. Judging by the script and (now stripped) binding methods, this work was probably created at an English monastery in the early 15th century. Due to the condition of the work, it is likely to be missing pages or perhaps whole sections of the original work.
This is a manuscript version of Saint Albert the Great’s Quaestiones super de animalibus (Questions on [Aristotle’s ‘The Animals’]), a medieval commentary on Aristotle’s writing about animals, including questions of biology, anatomy, and reproduction, including that of humans. While this work, consisting of 19 separate ‘books’ was composed in 1258, this particular edition is clearly a later manuscript version. The work is mostly intact, though there are several missing pages (perhaps lost elsewhere in the text); while the pages are not numbered they have been labeled by a later hand in Roman numerals corresponding to their section, giving some aid to the reader.
This is a manuscript version of Saint Albert the Great’s Questions on ‘The Animals’, a commentary discussing and critiquing Aristotle’s writing on biology which had been rediscovered in the West in the 13th century. Albert uses this commentary to criticize the writings of other thinkers of his day as well as to present his own well-considered (for the era) knowledge of human and animal biology, including anatomy, reproduction, sexuality, and history.
The four (or possibly five) commenters break down along these line:
Careful examination of the text will determine that nearly all of the pages from the original book have been preserved though nearly two-score are out of place. At most perhaps five pages have been lost.
Additional Details: This is a (fictional) Latin edition of the real Spanish account of Mayan religion, cultural, and language.
Author: Diego De Landa
Language: Latin
Published: 1588
Physical Description: Medium quarto, 11 ½ x 9. This version was apparently printed at the Silviano Press in Florence.
This work documents the language, writing system, and religion of the native peoples of the Yucatan peninsula at the time of the Spanish conquest. The author, the Spanish bishop Diego de Landa Calderón, describes several words and phrases of the Mayan example (still extant at that time). The book includes a description of the unique Mayan hieroglyphs — sometimes called the “de Landa alphabet” — which were critical to the script being deciphered in more recent eras.
TBD
There was never (in the real world) a Latin translation of de Landa’s book; there is also sadly no easily accessible scan of the original 1588 Spanish edition. Most of its Spanish text may be found in a later publication:
Additional Details: also known by its English title “The Angelic Secrets for the Creation of Gold, as Revealed to Enoch”.
Author: No author cited on title page. From the text it appears that the contents purport to be alchemical wisdom first recorded by the Egyptian alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis, who lived at the end of the 3rd Century CE.
Language: Greek and Latin
Published: Capelupo Press, Venice
Physical Description: Royal octavo, 10″ x 6 ¼”, with a worked stamped green leather cover; about 160 pages. A frontispiece gives the title, The Angelic Secrets for the Creation of Gold, as Revealed to Enoch, in Greek and Latin and identifies the printer as from the Capelupo press in Venice. The paper is of a poor quality and roughly one in four pages are broken, usually at the binding. The text, save for the frontispiece, is entirely in Greek with frequent English annotations by hand. There are just over a dozen illustrations, some of alchemical equipment, some of specific alchemical symbols.
This work contains the excerpted wisdom of the Egyptian alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis regarding the creation of gold via transmutation. A highly knowledgeable reader or one well-versed in occult tradition (skill test for either), recognizes that Zosimus is considered one of the earliest practitioners of alchemy and one whose writings (including this work) have been almost entirely lost. The process for the creation of gold involves prolonged prayers, magical purifications, celestial alignments, and the invocations to the angelic beings, as well as the careful heating, blending, and cooling of lead and other base metals under the exposure of moonlight.
(A reader skilled in occult knowledge, and who passes a relevant skill test, recognizes certain inconsistencies between the text and what is known of Zosimus. Additionally, while portions of the text are drawn verbatim from known Byzantine summaries of this ancient alchemist, the terminology and general philosophy presented strongly suggest that this work is a forgery, probably from the late 16th century. Similarly anyone making a Foreign Language (Greek) roll at -40% will identify anachronistic use of language demonstrating that this work was written no earlier than 1500.)
This book preserves the technique of creating gold from base metals, as taught to the Nephilim by the fallen angels, passed on from ancient times into Egypt, and then to learned scholars such as the author. The process is prolonged, complicated – even for alchemy, and expensive, though it promises a nearly unlimited supply of gold so long as the magician is favored by God. After a month long period of prayer, followed by two cycles of the moon spent in ritual cleansing (including fasting, abstention from sex, avoidance of unclean creatures, wearing only sackcloth, alternating scalding and freezing baths, etc.), the alchemist may begin to prepare a mixture of lead, tin, and iron, infused with a special preparation of Aqua Fortis. This must then be exposed to moon light for a consecutive month, over which the alchemist prays a specific cycle of prayers and invocations to a roster of angels. If the material does not become gold after the first week, additional weeks of prayer are recommended until divine favor is granted and the transmutation is accomplished.
Additional Details: this supposed travelogue appeared first in French sometime between 1357 and 1371. The purported author “Sir John Mandeville” of St. Albans is generally thought to be a nom de plume with the true identity of the author likely to be a Frenchman or a Fleming.
Author: “Sir John Mandeville”
Language: English, with marginal notes in Latin
Published: London, 1591. No publisher named.
Physical Description: A medium sixteenmo (5¾” x 4½”) bound in scuffed red leather. About 360 pages, some chipped, with marginal annotations in Latin; text is in a very small font, and is sometimes difficult to read. The work was published in London in 1591 but the name of the press is not given. Considering the poor quality of the print, it was likely done by an apprentice or an unlicensed printer, perhaps clandestinely. Title is given on the spine in Latin but contents are in English.
This is a well-known book (which can be identified from the title with relevant skill test): a Medieval travelogue by the likely fictional “Sir John Mandeville”, an English knight who traveled through Europe, the Near East, and India in the mid-14th century. While details about the Holy Land and Near East are considered relatively accurate (or at least no more inaccurate than other works of the period) his fantastical descriptions of Asia and the creatures to be found give his work the reputation of being more fantasy than fact. The annotations (requiring a language skill test) are concerned mainly with these fantastical creatures, attempting to align them with creatures from classical Mythology and dividing them into various types.
Like most English versions before the 18th century, this translation of Mandeville comes from a flawed French manuscript with numerous lacunae in the text, making for a somewhat disjointed read. This is only compounded by the fact that the ‘narrative’ is really a compilation of at least three different authors, if not more, much of it purloined from earlier authors like Heotum, Odoric of Pordenone, and Marco Polo. While there may be some original information, particularly regarding the Holy Land, much of the work is simply other accounts reworded and reordered. The Latin annotation attempts to categorize the fantastical creatures described by Mandeville into four categories based on the four humors, suggesting that the monstrous natures of these beings is, at least in part, derived from some significant imbalance in one or more of blood, phlegm, black bile or yellow bile.
Although there is no readily available scans of the 1591 edition are available, there are many different editions of Mandeville’s travels that have been scanned. The following is an abbreviated list. For GMs seeking the most evocative simulation of the 1591 version, consider drawing details from the third item:
