03348cam a22003853u 450000100060000000300070000600500170001300600020003000700050003200800410003701000130007804000110009104100170010205000060011910000530012524500270017825000190020526400510022430000470027533600260032233700260034833800360037450000310041050505890044150801800103052014800121053400610269065300120275165300230276370000190278670000380280585600570284385600430290099900190294375759UtSlPG20260610134743.0mcr n260607r20251924utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d  a24028913  aUtSlPG 7aen2iso639-1 4aG1 aFirestone, Clark B.q(Clark Barnaby),d1869-195714aThe coasts of illusion  aFirst edition. 1aSalt Lake City, UT :bProject Gutenberg,c2025  a1 online resource :bmultiple file formats  atextbtxt2rdacontent  acomputerbc2rdamedia  aonline resourcebcr2rdacarrier  aRelease date is 2025-03-310 aMarco talks with his neighbors -- Preface -- The world that was -- The earth itself -- Inanimate nature -- The animal kingdom -- The fabulous beasts -- Fable upon wings -- The dragon -- Denizens of the deep -- The peoples of prodigy -- The satyrs -- The pygmies -- The Amazons of legend -- The Amazons of history -- The folk of tradition -- The horizon lands -- Lands of legend -- Islands of enchantment -- The terrible ocean -- The Sargasso Sea -- Atlantis -- The gilded man -- The dream quests of Spain -- The fabric of illusion -- The travel tales of mankind -- The gains of fable.  aAlan, Hannah Wilson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)  a"The Coasts of Illusion: A Study of Travel Tales" by Clark B. Firestone is a historical and literary analysis written in the early 20th century. The book explores the myths, legends, and half-truths woven into travel literature through the ages, focusing on how these narratives shaped humanity’s perception of the earth and its inhabitants. Rather than examining the supernatural, the work delves into the imaginative and sometimes fanciful ways in which people explained unknown lands, creatures, and phenomena before the age of modern geography and science.  The opening of this study sets the tone by invoking the legendary adventures of Marco Polo, whose tales blend fact with hearsay and wonder, and uses his imagined dialogue with Venetians to illustrate how travel stories both fascinated and amused people. The preface clarifies that Firestone aims to survey the world as filtered through myths, exploring how geography, peoples, animals, and even natural phenomena like rivers or stones were distorted or imagined anew. Early chapters describe how maps once depicted both real and fantastical lands, and recount a host of beliefs about the world’s shape, the mystical properties of plants and stones, and the marvels attached to animals. The text emphasizes the power of human imagination—driven by hope, fear, or wishful thinking—in constructing a world of marvels that persisted until relatively modern times. (This is an automatically generated summary.)  pOriginally published:cNew York: Harper & Brothers, 1924  aLegends  aGeographical myths1 aHambidge, Ruth1 aMillais, John Everett,d1829-18964 uhttps://archive.org/details/coastsofillusion0000clar40uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75759  c116484d116484