Mandeville’s fabricated travel book circulated in hundreds of manuscripts.
Evidence
The most popular account of the marvels of Asia was provided in 1356 or 1357 by an author who called himself Sir John Mandeville. Mandeville presented his work as a reliable guide to pilgrims going to the Holy Land and claimed that he wrote it to satisfy the intellectual curiosity of those who wished to go on pilgrimage, but who could not because of a papal ban then in force. In fact, his book ranges much more widely throughout the lands of Asia and is largely a compilation of entertaining marvels including the vegetable lamb, the fountain of youth and anthills of gold dust. Whether there really was an English knight called Sir John Mandeville is debatable and, indeed, the issue is still being debated. (M. C. Seymour conjectured that the book may have been written by a French clergyman.) The important thing about the author, whoever he was, is that he had many readers over a long period of time and approximately three hundred manuscripts of his work in various languages survive from the medieval period. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 100