Illustrated 50th Anniversary Edition • With an introduction by #1 New York Times
bestselling Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anthony Doerr A beautiful new illustrated hardcover
in the Mariner Classics line: Italo Calvino’s beloved intricately crafted novel about an
Emperor’s travels—a brilliant journey across far-off places and distant memory. With cities it
is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed… In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan
and the young Marco Polo—Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end
of his empire coming. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his
travels around the empire: stories about memory and desire art and creation life and death.
As Marco Polo unspools his tales the emperor realizes these fantastic places are more familiar
than they appear. With a brilliant new introduction from Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Doerr
and dreamlike illustrations of the cities interspersed throughout this edition breathes new
life into Calvino’s classic a celebration of the story’s profound invention and enduring
insight.
