The text is unabridged, with original spelling and extensive, easy-to-use marginal glosses and footnotes. No other edition accurately represents the actual (and likely authorial) divisions of the text as attested to by its two surviving witnesses—Caxton's 1485 print and, especially, the famous Winchester Manuscript. The Winchester Manuscript is now generally agreed to be the more authentic of the two surviving manuscripts. The Norton Critical Edition is the first edition of Malory to recover important elements of this manuscript: paragraphing, marginal annotations, hierarchies of narrative division as signaled by size and decorative intricacy of initial capitals and font changes.

This Norton Critical Edition presents the unabridged text of perhaps the most famous version of the Arthurian legend. Original spelling has been preserved, and the text is accompanied by extensive, easy-to-use marginal glosses and footnotes. No other edition as accurately represents the actual (and likely authorial) tale divisions of the text as attested to by its two surviving witnesses--William Caxton's 1485 print and, especially, the celebrated Winchester Manuscript.

  The Winchester Manuscript is now generally acknowledged to be the more authentic of the two surviving witnesses. The Norton Critical Edition of Le Morte Darthur is the first modern edition to recover important elements of this manuscript: paragraphing, marginal annotations, and hierarchies of narrative division as signaled by size and decorative intricacy of initial capitals and font changes. This edition also preserves, in black-letter font, the striking rubrication of proper names in the Winchester Manuscript, reconstructing for readers something of an authentic medieval reading experience that visually supports Malory's extraordinary representation, in character and setting, of the chivalric ideal.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chronologies

Arthur Before Malory

The Wars of the Roses

Malory: Life Events

Receptions of Le Morte Oarthur to 1934

Reading Malory's English

Editorial Procedure/Reading the Edition

Abbreviations

Page Numbers in This Edition Corresponding to Vinaver (O3) Section Titles

Le Morte Darthur or The Hoole Book of Kyng Arthur and of His Noble Knyghtes of the Rounde Table

 FRO THE MARYAGE OF KYNGE UTHER UNTO KYNG ARTHURE THAT REGNED AFTIR HYM AND DED MANY BATAYLES

 How Uther Pendragon Gate the Noble Conqueror Kyng Arthur

 The Tale of Balyn and Balan

 The Weddyng of Kyng Arthur

 Aftir Thes Questis

 THE NOBLE TALE BETWYXT KYNGE ARTHURE AND Lucius THE EMPEROUR OF ROME

 A NOBLE TALE OF SIR LAUNCELOT Du LAKE

 THE TALE OF SIR GARETH OF ORKENEY

 THE FYRSTE AND THE SECUNDE BOKE OF SYR TRYSTRAMS DE LYONES

 THE NOBLE TALE OF THE SANKGREAL

 THE TALE OF SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUENE GWENYVERE

 THE DETH OF ARTHUR

Sources and Backgrounds

Sources

 The Prose Merlin

 Merlin's Conception and Birth

 The Conception of the Round Table

 The Suite de Merlin

 The Dolorous Stroke

 The Lake of Diana; Ninianne Increasingly Ensnares Merlin

 The Alliterative Morte Arthure

 Arthur's Dream of the Dragon and the Bear

 The End of the Battle of the Prisoner-Escort

 The Death of Gawain; Mordred's Threnody

 The Chronicle of John Hardyng

 The Coronation of Arthur at Rome

 The Prose Lancelot

 The First Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere

 Mistaken Identity

 Lancelot Rescues a Maiden

 Perlesvaus

 Lancelot at the Perilous Chapel

 The Prose Tristan

 The Philtre Takes Effect

 Brangain and the Serfs

 Iseut of the White Hands

 The Mortal Lay

 The Queste del Saint Graal

 The Hermit Explains the Temptation of Perceval

 Lancelot's Genealogy

 The Tree of Life

 Galahad Dies

 The Stanzaic Morte Arthur

 Launcelot in the Queen's Chambers

 Gawain's Objection to the Queen's Execution

 Launcelot Responds to His Besiegers

 Launcelot Hopes for Peace

 Arthur Finds Gawain Already Dead

 Arthur's Dream of the Wheel of Fortune

 The Death of Arthur

 The Death of Launcelot

 The Death of the Queen; Conclusion

 The Morte le Roi Artu

 The Maid of Escalot

 Lancelot in the Queen's Chambers

 Gawain's Objection to the Queen's Execution

 The Death of Gawain

 Arthur's Last Dreams

 The Death of Arthur

 The Death of the Queen

 The Death of Lancelot

Backgrounds

Responses to the Times

 THE BERKELEY LETTERS

 Isabel, Lady Berkeley, Warns Lord Berkeley of Plans to Seize His Lands

 Lord Berkeley Agrees to Trial by Combat with Viscount Lisle

 THE PASTON LETTERS

 Lord Moleyns Seizes Gresham Manor and Other Paston Holdings

 Moleyns's Men Threaten to Abduct Margaret Paston; Other Threats to Paston Holdings

 CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES

 The Register of Abbot John Whetamstede

 The Duke of York Claims the Throne and Is Rejected (c. October 10, 1460)

 Gregory's Chronicle

 On the Battles of Mortimer's Cross and Second St. Albans, February 2-17, 1461

 George Neville · Letter to Francesco Coppini on the Battle of Towton

 Edward IV's Act of Attainder, December 16, 1461

 CHIVALRY IN PRINCIPLE

 Gilbert Hay · The Buke of Knychthede

 Properties of the Noble Order and Office of Knychthede

 How Knyghtis of the Bath Shulde Be Made

 Oath of a Herald

 TOURNAMENT AND BATFLE

 Christopher Gravett · Knights at Tournament: The 15th Century

 John Keegan · Agincourt, 25 October 1415

Criticism

 Catherine Batt · Malory and Rape

 William Caxton · Prologue and Epilogue to the 1485 Edition

 Helen Cooper · Counter-Romance: Civil Strife and Father-Killing in the Prose Romances

 P. J. C. Field · The Rhetoric of Dialogue

 Geraldine Heng · Enchanted Ground: The Feminine Subtext in Malory

 Mark Lambert · Shame and Guilt

 Terence McCarthy · On Malory's Style

 Carol Meale · Manuscripts, Readers, and Patrons in Fifteenth-Century England: Sir Thomas Malory and Arthurian Romance

 Felicity Riddy · Divisions

 Paul Strohm · Mellyagant's Primal Scene

Glossary

Selected Guide to Proper Names

Selected Bibliography