The Venetian merchant Marco Polo may (or may not) have been born sometime in September 1254 and probably (or perhaps not) died early in the morning of January 9, 1324. He is famous not for his making his three-score and ten, but for recording his Travels to and from the Court of Kublai Khan. His fame notwithstanding, uncertainties about the book exceed those about his birth and death dates. It was written, it did make a great hit, and it did circulate throughout Europe (even to remote England), and that’s part of the uncertainty, for it moved in manuscript form, of course, and scholars have concluded that there is no “authorized” edition. There were doubts even at the time about its genuineness (some knew it as “Marco’s million lies”). We can take it as read, however, that Marco (aged 17 to 20) did take one trip to Asia, via the Silk Road, that his father and uncle accompanied him, and it was their second “travel.” They also made a lot of money, had an exciting time, and survived to tell the tales. That some of the tales improved in the tellings, copyings, and translations is taken as a given; so the book becomes a compendium of what westerners knew and what they wanted to believe about ‘the East,’ an early version of what Edward Said called “Orientalism.” Five centuries later, Polo’s travels (and possibly a bit of opium) inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write

We do plead with greater force for the Emancipation of our Slaves, in proportion as the Oppression exercised over them exceeds the Oppression exercised by Great Britain over these States . . . Methodists of Frederick County, petition to Virginia Gener...

As a desert island castaway, which eight records, which book (not the Bible or Shakespeare), and which single luxury would you want to have with you? Roy Plomley's question to his BBC Radio guests, 1,791 times.