Le Morte D'Arthur

Then to proceed forth in this said book, which I direct unto all noble princes, lords and ladies, gentlemen or gentlewomen, that desire to read or hear read of the noble and joyous history of the great conqueror and excellent king, King Arthur William Caxton’s Preface

Quite possibly the most influential book in the English-language Arthurian canon - Le Morte D’Arthur in many ways wrapped up the various innovations and new stories added to the legend during the Middle Ages into one (mostly) consistent storyline.

It was written by Sir Thomas Malory¹ in the 15th century - the waning end of the Middle Ages. Its publication in print in 1485 by William Caxton helped solidify it as the definitive interpretation that would survive into the modern era. Much of it is based off of the Lancelot-Grail² and the alliterative and stanzaic Morte Arthure, but there’s other more obscure stories added or even adaptions and additions from Malory himself.

There are a variety of adaptions or translations that soften the tough Middle English text - Project Gutenberg has it in two volumes (I, II) that are not too dense to read and which I reference often - though I also have the Norton Critical Edition which has been pretty nice. Overall, it’s not the easiest entrance into the legend, but it’s not impossible to get through.

Practically every commentary on the Arthurian legend in English is in part a commentary on Morte D’Arthur because of how central it is - but some notably specific ones I have, that disabused me a bit of my earlier sense that Malory was a hack who was just thoughtlessly abridging and collecting older works - are Castles and Space in Malory’s Morte Darthur and Women of Words in Le Morte Darthur.

Morte D’Arthur is the “main” canon used by the Great Pendragon Campaign and my version too.

Footnotes

1. A knight whose identity isn’t quite clear and definitely seems to have had some interesting things going on in his own life one way or another. ↩

2. But that work’s larger size and Old-French language means it’s rarely been penetrable by English writers. It might be a bigger deal in French. ↩