Le Morte d'Arthur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Le Morte d'Arthur (The Death of Arthur) is Sir Thomas Malory's compilation of numerous French Arthurian romances. It was first published in 1485 by William Caxton. Le Morte d'Arthur has become the base story of many modern Arthurian stories, including T.H. White's The Once and Future King.

Malory likely started work on it while he was in prison in the early 1450s and completed it by 1470. It is believed that William Caxton named it Le Morte d'Arthur instead of Malory's original title The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table. Also, most modern editions have updated it from Malory's original Middle English. Caxton was also responsible for separating it into 21 books comprised of 507 chapters for easier reading. Yet readers still find it apparent that Malory intended the work to be eight tales about:

1. the birth and rise of Arthur
2. King Arthur's invasion of France and Rome
3. Launcelot
4. Gareth (brother of Gawain)
5. Tristram and Isolde
6. the Quest of the Holy Grail
7. the affair between Launcelot and Guinevere
8. the breaking of the Knights of the Round Table and the death of Arthur

Most of the events in the book take place in Britain and France in the latter half of the 5th century. In some parts, it ventures to Rome, Sarras (near Babylon), and recalls Biblical tales from the ancient Middle East.

External links

• Le Morte d'Arthur HTML e-book in Middle English
• Le Morte d'Arthur HTML e-book in Modern English:
  • Volume 1 (books 1-9)
  • Volume 2 (books 10-21)
• Lugodoc's Guide to Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur

The original article can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Morte_d'Arthur.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.