The Travels of Marco Polo was conceived in a prison cell in Genoa, Italy, in 1298. A few years earlier Polo had returned to the West after an epic journey that lasted some 24 years. He then saw action in a naval battle between the Venetian and Genoese fleets, and was captured. It was in jail that he met and befriended Rustichello of Pisa, a well-known writer and collector of Arthurian romances. Their collaboration yielded a book that would give Europe its first authoritative account of the Middle and Far East, in particular China, and reveal the presence of a vast empire and advanced civilization far greater than anything Europeans could achieve or even imagine.

More than 100 copies of that long-lost original exist, many dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. There is no definitive manuscript, however, and all existing versions have been embellished, doctored or censored by the Christian establishment over the years. Modern editions are thus collations and translations of imperfect copies. This murky history helps explain why the book describes what the Venetian could not possibly have seen, and overlooks sights that any traveler to China must have witnessed — like the Great Wall, foot-binding and chopsticks. Skeptics say that Polo never ventured to China and that he and Rustichello used second-hand information from other travelers, especially Arab traders. Certainly, there is no hard historical evidence that Polo actually visited all the places he describes. But most of the detail has since been corroborated by historians and geographers, confounding critics and confirming the importance of the book as the fullest and most accurate account of Asia in its time.

Originally called Description of the World, Travels aims for geographical completeness, not the immediacy and excitement of personal encounter. It’s not a travelogue. Consistent with the possibility that Polo was not an eyewitness, his book is not “on-the-spot” reporting, and only loosely follows an itinerary. To modern audiences, the book may seem dull and repetitive, to be dipped into, not read cover to cover. Yet Travels was a revolutionary piece of writing. It radically altered European understanding of Asia by forcing the West to recognize a superior culture in the East, and, by describing with such verve the luxuries and sensuousness of Chinese cities, it impressed the idea of an exotic East on the European psyche.

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1298年，《馬可·波羅游記》創(chuàng)作于熱那亞的一家監(jiān)獄里。幾年前，波羅在結(jié)束了長達24年的漫長旅行之后，返回了西方。不久，由于他參加了威尼斯艦隊與熱那亞艦隊之間的海戰(zhàn)，因而被捕。正是在監(jiān)獄里，他結(jié)識了比薩的魯斯提契洛——一位以寫作亞瑟王的故事而出名的作家。兩人通力合作，完成了歐洲有史以來第一部關(guān)于中東及遠東(特別是中國)的權(quán)威著述，并展現(xiàn)了當時歐洲人根本無法企及和想象的遼闊帝國與先進文明。

雖然該書的原本早已失傳，但有100多種刻印本保存了下來，其中許多來自14~15世紀。然而，沒有哪一份手稿堪稱權(quán)威版本，所有現(xiàn)存的版本都受到了基督教會的潤色、改動或?qū)彶椤Ｒ虼耍F(xiàn)代的版本乃是針對原本就不完善的刊印本的校勘和翻譯版本。這也解釋了為什么該書描述了波羅根本不可能見過的事情，卻又漏掉了任何去過中國的旅行者都應(yīng)見過的景象——例如長城、裹腳和筷子。懷疑者聲稱波羅從未去過中國，他和魯斯提契洛只不過是利用了其他旅行者(特別是阿拉伯商人)的二手信息罷了。誠然，對于波羅是否確實去過他所描繪的那些地方并沒有切實的史實證明，但是書中的絕大多數(shù)細節(jié)后來都得到了歷史學(xué)家和地理學(xué)家的證實，這也就反擊了批評者，并印證了該書作為當時對亞洲最全面準確的記錄所享有的重要性。

該書原本起名為《寰宇記》，旨在追求地理上的完整性，而不是直接描述個人經(jīng)歷。它不是一本寫實的旅行見聞錄。鑒于波羅有可能并非實際的經(jīng)歷者，因此他的書也就談不上是一本“現(xiàn)場”記錄。對現(xiàn)代讀者而言，該書也許顯得無聊而啰嗦，隨手翻翻尚可，不值得逐頁細讀。雖然如此，《游記》仍不失為一部革新性的作品。它迫使西方認識到東方存在的超級文明，生動描述了中國城市的奢華，從而徹底改變了歐洲人對亞洲的認識，把東方的奇妙之處深深印入了歐洲人的腦海。