Books with author Sir Malory

The legend of King Arthur can be found in English stories and folktales as early as the sixth century. The greatest and most complete version, however, did not appear until the fifteenth century (1485), with Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur". To create the epic tale, Malory drew from many sources, most notably thirteenth-century French prose romances. He supplemented these French sources with English Arthurian materials.Malory's sources, dating from 1225-1230, are largely a selection of courtly romances about Launcelot. These stories purport to be historical accounts of King Arthur and his knights and of their quest for the Holy Grail. In addition to the French sources, Malory added material from a fourteenth century English alliterative poem, the Morte Arthur. Although it is probable that a real Arthur did exist (it is a common name), there is little actual historical basis for the stories, which are largely legend and folklore. Many scholars have attempted to prove the veracity of the work, but the attraction of Malory's work has always been the text itself, with its emphasis on courtly love, honour, virtue and devotion, magic and miracles. "Le Morte d'Arthur" was immediately popular with readers and critics and has remained so.The authorship of "Le Morte d’ Arthur" is controversial, because more than one “Thomas Malory” exists who could have written the work. Many believe the author was most probably the unusual Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel. It was during his imprisonment that Malory composed, translated, and adapted his great rendering of the Arthurian material. "Le Morte d’Arthur" tells the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The tale begins with Arthur’s birth, his education, and his rise to the throne. It also recounts the tragic love story of Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, the destruction of the Round Table and Arthur’s mysterious disappearance or death.

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table! What magic is in the words! How they carry us straight to the days of chivalry, to the witchcraft of Merlin, to the wonderful deeds of Lancelot and Perceval and Galahad, to the Quest for the Holy Grail, to all that "glorious company, the flower of men," as Tennyson has called the king and his companions! Down through the ages the stories have come to us, one of the few great romances which, like the tales of Homer, are as fresh and vivid to-day as when men first recited them in court and camp and cottage. Other great kings and paladins are lost in the dim shadows of long-past centuries, but Arthur still reigns in Camelot and his knights still ride forth to seek the Grail."No little thing shall beThe gentle music of the bygone years,Long past to us with all their hopes and fears."So wrote the poet William Morris in The Earthly Paradise. And surely it is no small debt of gratitude we owe the troubadours and chroniclers and poets who through many centuries have sung of Arthur and his champions, each adding to the song the gifts of his own imagination, so building from simple folk-tales one of the most magnificent and moving stories in all literature.This debt perhaps we owe in greatest measure to three men; to Chrétien de Troies, a Frenchman, who in the twelfth century put many of the old Arthurian legends into verse; to Sir Thomas Malory, who first wrote out most of the stories in English prose, and whose book, the Morte Darthur, was printed by William Caxton, the first English printer, in 1485; and to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who in his series of poems entitled the Idylls of the King retold the legends in new and beautiful guise in the nineteenth century.

THE Morte D'Arthur was finished; as the epilogue tells us; in the ninth year of Edward IV.; i.e. between March 4; 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus; fitly enough; the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country; and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton's story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book; but to some extent its editor also; dividing Malory's work into twenty-one books; splitting up the books into chapters; by no means skilfully; and supplying the "Rubrish" or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton's preface contains; moreover; a brief criticism which; on the points on which it touches; is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.

THE Morte D'Arthur was finished; as the epilogue tells us; in the ninth year of Edward IV.; i.e. between March 4; 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus; fitly enough; the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country; and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton's story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book; but to some extent its editor also; dividing Malory's work into twenty-one books; splitting up the books into chapters; by no means skilfully; and supplying the "Rubrish" or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton's preface contains; moreover; a brief criticism which; on the points on which it touches; is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.

THE Morte D'Arthur was finished; as the epilogue tells us; in the ninth year of Edward IV.; i.e. between March 4; 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus; fitly enough; the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country; and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton's story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book; but to some extent its editor also; dividing Malory's work into twenty-one books; splitting up the books into chapters; by no means skilfully; and supplying the "Rubrish" or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton's preface contains; moreover; a brief criticism which; on the points on which it touches; is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.

THE Morte D'Arthur was finished; as the epilogue tells us; in the ninth year of Edward IV.; i.e. between March 4; 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus; fitly enough; the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country; and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton's story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book; but to some extent its editor also; dividing Malory's work into twenty-one books; splitting up the books into chapters; by no means skilfully; and supplying the "Rubrish" or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton's preface contains; moreover; a brief criticism which; on the points on which it touches; is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.

THE Morte D'Arthur was finished; as the epilogue tells us; in the ninth year of Edward IV.; i.e. between March 4; 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus; fitly enough; the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country; and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton's story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book; but to some extent its editor also; dividing Malory's work into twenty-one books; splitting up the books into chapters; by no means skilfully; and supplying the "Rubrish" or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton's preface contains; moreover; a brief criticism which; on the points on which it touches; is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.

THE Morte D'Arthur was finished; as the epilogue tells us; in the ninth year of Edward IV.; i.e. between March 4; 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus; fitly enough; the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country; and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton's story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book; but to some extent its editor also; dividing Malory's work into twenty-one books; splitting up the books into chapters; by no means skilfully; and supplying the "Rubrish" or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton's preface contains; moreover; a brief criticism which; on the points on which it touches; is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.

THE Morte D'Arthur was finished; as the epilogue tells us; in the ninth year of Edward IV.; i.e. between March 4; 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus; fitly enough; the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country; and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton's story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book; but to some extent its editor also; dividing Malory's work into twenty-one books; splitting up the books into chapters; by no means skilfully; and supplying the "Rubrish" or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton's preface contains; moreover; a brief criticism which; on the points on which it touches; is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.

THE Morte D'Arthur was finished; as the epilogue tells us; in the ninth year of Edward IV.; i.e. between March 4; 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus; fitly enough; the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country; and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton's story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book; but to some extent its editor also; dividing Malory's work into twenty-one books; splitting up the books into chapters; by no means skilfully; and supplying the "Rubrish" or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton's preface contains; moreover; a brief criticism which; on the points on which it touches; is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.