It has been the custom with many writers to depreciate the labours of Marco Polo,[10] and to impute to him a lack of trustworthiness; but it appears to us, after a careful perusal of his book, that such censure is scarcely deserved. He made mistakes, but he is poles asunder from such writers as Maundevile or Pinto.[11] His travels in the east are narrated with much fidelity, and are almost entirely free from the gross misstatements that are met with so freely in many books of travel, not only at this early date but for centuries afterwards. The original was probably written in the Venetian dialect, but the earliest manuscript now known, that of 1320, is in Latin. A copy of this is in the magnificent library of the British Museum, another is in the Royal Berlin Library, another in the Paris Library, and some few others are in private collections. Other MSS. of it exist, and it was also freely printed on the advent of the printing press, as for instance, at Basle in 1522; in Venice in 1496, 1508, 1597, and 1611; in Brescia in 1500; Paris, 1556; Nuremberg, 1477; Strasburg, 1534; Leipzig, 1611; Lisbon, 1502; Seville, 1520; London, 1597, 1625; Amsterdam, 1664. As these various editions were in the languages of the respective places of publication it indicates a widespread interest, and it may be taken as a proof, too, that the book was held to possess solid value: no book of the Munchausen type can show such a record as this. An excellent English edition, very freely illustrated by notes, is that of William Marsden, published in 1818: to this the editor prefixes a very complete biography of the old author.