A challenge for Marco Polo and the scholars who are crying foul

This week a book was published which alleges that Marco Polo was beaten to China. Four years before he arrived in Xanadu in 1275, another merchant, Jacob d'Ancona, is reported to have arrived on the coast opposite Taiwan in 1271 and begun a diary that was to lie hidden from the public for the next seven centuries until the current holder of it was prepared to have it reprinted and translated for the world to read.

The resulting book, The City of Light by Jacob d'Ancona and translated by distinguished academic David Selbourne, gives a fascinating view of the teeming medieval port city Zaitun, or the 'City of Light' - now Quanzhou, south of Fuzhou - in 13th-century Sung dynasty China on the verge of invasion by the feared Tartars from the north.

In the book, D'Ancona, a religious Jew who was possibly a rabbi, describes his astonishment at the huge number of people pursuing riches through the sale of silks and spices, his horror of the city's low life and his lively discussions with the local sages.

But The City of Light has been dogged by controversy. The mysterious Italian holder of the manuscript swore Mr Selbourne to keep secret his identity, would not allow anyone else to see the original and only permitted translation at his home.

Then China scholar Jonathan Spence, asked to review the book, said he doubted the authenticity of the descriptions of sex and street life. American publication has been postponed, but the British parent company Little, Brown went ahead with release on Thursday.

In the book's introduction, Mr Selbourne explains the secrecy over the manuscript by saying that the 'rights of ownership over it are unclear'.