These studies look at Malory's Morte Darthur as both literature and history. Insights into warfare and into contemporary attitudes to violence and the depredations of war are balanced by considerations of the literary context of the Morte, both with regard to the manuscript tradition of 'grete bokes', and the first printed version. Current critical attitudes to the Morte are also examined, with the suggestion that Malory's intentions have been both imperfectly realised and understood. D. THOMAS HANKS Professor of English, Baylor University Many aspects of Malory's Morte Darthur reflect contemporary literary and social issues, and it is this topic which forms the focus for the eight essays in the volume, all by leading Malory scholars. Terence McCarthy suggests that the Morte was a book that came at the wrong time, and which we have admired for the wrong reasons. Andrew Lynch and D. Thomas Hanks Jr argue that Malory questions his culture's ideology of arms; Karen Cherewatuk and Kevin Grimm discuss the manuscript and printed contexts of the Morte. Robert Kelly examines some of the political elements of the Morte; Ann Elaine Bliss points out the role of processions in Malory's time and in the Morte; and P.J.C. Field compares the Morte's final battle to elements of the Battle of Towton (1461), finding strong similarities between the two.

Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. It delivers fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT The influence and significance of the legend of Arthur are fully demonstrated by the subject matter and time-span of articles here, ranging from a mid twelfth-century Latin vita of the Welsh saint Dyfrig to the early modernArthur of the Dutch. Topics addressed include the reasons for Edward III's abandonment of the Order of the Round Table; the 1368 relocation of Arthur's tomb at Glastonbury Abbey; the evidence for our knowledge of the French manuscript sources for Malory's first tale, in particular the Suite du Merlin; and the central role played by Cornwall in Malory's literary worldview. Meanwhile, a survey of the pan-European aspects of medieval Arthurian literature, considering key characters in both familiar and less familiar languages such as Old Norse and Hebrew, further outlines its popularity and impact. Elizabeth Archibald is Professor of English, University of Durham;Professor David F. Johnson teaches in the English Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee. Contributors: Dorsey Armstrong, Christopher Berard, Bart Besamusca, P.J.C. Field, Linda Gowans, Sjoerd Levelt, JulianM. Luxford, Ryan Naughton, Jessica Quinlan, Joshua Byron Smith

A new edition of Malory's Morte Darthur based on the Winchester and other source manuscripts. CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Malory completed his Morte Darthur in 1469-70. The two earliest surviving witnesses, the Winchester manuscript and Caxton's printed edition, were both produced within the next sixteen years. The manuscript was soon lost, but its rediscovery in 1934 revealed that these two texts had striking differences. Eighty years of scholarship in a variety of disciplines has discovered a good deal about who changed whatand why: the Caxton, for instance, tends to be very unreliable in the last few lines of particular kinds of pages. These discoveries should make it possible to produce an edition of Malory's book that comes closer than ever before to what Malory intended to write. The present edition aims to do that, basing itself on the Winchester manuscript, but treating it merely as the most important piece of evidence for what Malory intended, and the default text where no other reading can be shown to be more probable. P.J.C. Field is Professor of English at Bangor University.

Peter Field's new edition of the Morte Darthur has been hailed as "our standard critical edition of Malory". This paperback of Vol 1 only makes the complete definitive original spelling text edition available, with the same pagination as in Vol 1 of the original two-volume hardback edition. This Paperback is volume 1 (text only) of the original two-volume edition. Selected as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of 2014, the two-volume scholarly edition of the Morte Darthur examined the two surviving versions of the text: Caxton's edition of 1485 and the Winchester manuscript, known to have existed around 1480 but lost until 1934. All major modern scholarly editions have favoured one of these to the point of preserving corrigible error. This paperback includes the definitive original spelling text edition of Malory's classic text which has been described as a "major event in the long history of Malory scholarship". Anyone wishing to have this text along with the full critical apparatus assembled by Professor Field is referred to the two-volume hardcover edition, which remains in print. P.J.C. Field is Professor of English at Bangor University.

The idea of the quest, crucial to Arthurian literature, investigated in texts, manuscripts, and film. The theme of the quest in Arthurian literature - mainly but not exclusively the Grail quest - is explored in the essays presented here, covering French, Dutch, Norse, German, and English texts. A number of the essays trace the relationship, often negative, between Arthurian chivalry and the Grail ethos. Whereas most of the contributors reflect on the popularity of the Grail quest, several examine the comparative rarity of the Grail in certain literatures and define the elaboration of quest motifs severed from the Grail material. An appendix to the volume offers a filmography that includes all the cinematic treatments of the Grail, either as central theme or minor motif. This book will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers fascinated by the Arthurian and Grail legends. CONTRIBUTORS: NORRIS J. LACY, ANTONIO FURTADO, WILL HASTY, RICHARD TRACHSLER, MARIANNE E. KALINKE, MARTINE MEUWESE, DAVID F. JOHNSON, PHILLIP BOARDMAN, CAROLINE D. ECKHARDT, P.J.C. FIELD, JAMES P. CARLEY, RICHARD BARBER, KEVIN J. HARTY

The most comprehensive consideration of the competing arguments for Malory's identitu yet undertaken.`A tour de force of historical scholarship and detective work - so good it sets the mind racing.'LITERARY REVIEW Malory's stories of King Arthur and the Round Table have been widely read for centuries, but their author's own life has been as variously reported as that of any Arthurian knight. The first serious attempts to identify him were made in the 1890s, but the man who then seemed most likely to have written the book was later found to have been accused of attempted murder, rape, extortion, and sacrilegious robbery and to have spent ten years or more in prison.Could this be reconciled with the authorship of the most famous chivalric romance in English? Other candidates for authorship were proposed but there was little consensus. This book gives the most comprehensive consideration of the competing arguments yet undertaken. It is a fascinating piece of detective work followed by a full account of the life of the man identified as theMalory. Close consideration of individual documents, many of whichwere entirely unknown in 1966, when the last book on Malory's life appeared, makes possible a fuller and more convincing story than has ever been told before. Professor P.J.C. FIELD teaches in the Department of English at theUniversity of Wales, Bangor.

Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. It delivers fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT This issue offers stimulating studies of a wide range of Arthurian texts and authors, from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, among which is the first winner of the Derek Brewer Essay Prize, awarded to a fascinating exploration of Ragnelle's strangeness in The Weddyng of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnelle. It includes an exploration of Irish and Welsh cognates and possible sources for Merlin; Bakhtinian analysis of Geoffrey of Monmouth's playful discourse; and an account of the transmission of Geoffrey's text into Old Icelandic. In the Middle English tradition, there is an investigation of material Arthuriana in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, followed by explorations of shame in Malory's Morte Darthur. The post-medieval articles see one paper devoted to the paratexts of sixteenth-century French Arthurian publishers; one to eighteenth-century Arthuriana; and one to a range of nineteenth-century rewritings of the virginity of Galahad and Percival's Sister. Two Notes close this volume: one on Geoffrey's Vita Merlini and a possible Irish source, and one on a likely source for Malory's linking of Trystram with the Book of Hunting and Hawking in an early form of The Book of St Albans.

Complete Malory articles by leading Malory scholar on issues relating to the text and sources of the Morte Darthur. During the last thirty years, the study of Malory's text and sources has given rise to hotly contested issues and spectacular discoveries, as well as fundamental questions about the nature of his Morte Darthurand how we should read it. The debate has given rise to hotly contested issues and spectacular discoveries, even requiring forensic examination of the unique manuscript of Malory's great book; it has also thrown fresh light on Malory's art, politics, revisions, tastes, reading, knowledge of Europe, and sense of history. Professor Peter Field is a leading authority on these questions, and the essays collected here, revised and updated for this edition, are of great importance for an understanding of Malory. A new study considers the relative authoirty of the Winchester and Caxton texts. P.J.C. FIELD is Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Wales, Bangor.

Eleven essays bring Arthurian studies into the 21st century, including film and black popular culture. Eleven essays by leading Arthurians lead off with an overview of the field suggesting directions that Arthurian studies must take to remain vital. Other essays contain innovative approaches, overviews of specific areas of Arthurian studies, and suggestions for new ways to approach Arthurian material; they range over Malory, Latin Arthurian literature, Gawain and the Green Knight, Merlin in the twenty-first century, Tennyson's Idylls, Arthur in African-American culture, current trends in criticism, Arthurian fiction, and Arthurian film. Contributors: ROBERT BLANCH, DEREK BREWER, P.J.C. FIELD, SIAN ECHARD, PETER GOODRICH, KEVIN HARTY, NORRIS J. LACY, BARBARATEPA LUPACK, DAVID STAINES, RAYMOND THOMPSON, JULIAN WASSERMAN, BONNIE WHEELER.

The essays in this collection present a range of new ideas and approaches in Malory studies, looking again (as the title suggests) at several of the most debated critical points. A number of articles focus closely on the implications of the production of the text, ranging from the repercussions of the working habits of the Winchester scribes, as well as of Malory's printers and editors, to a reassessment of Caxton's Preface. There are also nuanced readings of geography and politics in the Morte Darthur and its fifteenth-century contexts, and analyses of text and context in relation to the role of women, character and theme in the Morte, including the important questions of worshyp and mesure, as well as the issues of coherence and genre.

The most recent research in matters Arthurian, by leading scholars in the field. The essays in this latest volume have a particularly strong focus on English material; they include explorations of Malory's presentation of Sir Dinadan, the connections between ballads and popular romance, and, moving beyond themedieval period, Thomas Love Peacock's The Misfortunes of Elphin. They are complemented by articles on French sources [L'Atre perilleux, the Queste del Saint Graal, and the Perlesvaus], and with an overview of the idea of cowardice and Arthurian narrative.Contributors: ANDREW LYNCH, P. J. C. FIELD, JOYCE COLEMAN, D. THOMAS HANKS JR, RALUCA L. RADULESCU, MARGARET ROBSON, MARTIN CONNOLLY, NORRIS J. LACY, FANNI BOGDANOW, TONY GRAND, ROBERT GOSSEDGE