Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory to start the year.

Let's begin this year with a fanciful trip to the times of knights, kings, wizards, and the chivalric code with Le Mort d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory.  Everyone enjoys the old tales of King Arthur and his good Knights of the Round Table from our younger years.  It has been told and retold many times over.  Most of us know it from Disney's The Sword and the Stone and some of us may have seen the mediocre First Knight with Sean Connery and Richard Gere.  A lucky few may have even seen Excalibur (which is the best one, by the way, go see it!) and I only know one person who has read T.H. White's The Once and Future King.   But regardless of what you have read or seen, we have all heard of King Arthur and his lovely Guenevere, the brave but tempted Lancelot, and the wizard Merlin.  You all know about chivalry and honor, lust and magic.  All of these are in here, but did you ever hear of King Arthur the killer of babies? or conqueror of Rome? or emasculator of giants?  You know of the Black Knight but what about the Blue, Green, and Red?  Well, you may look forward to these strange tales and more and let everything you thought you knew about the round table be turned on its head.

About the author

You will often see Sir Thomas Malory's name spelled a host of ways. One of the reasons is that it is the anglicization of a french name from the late 1400's.  Another reason is that there was not much standardization of spelling in those days as most people couldn't write and the spoken word was changing faster than the written form, pronunciations and all.  The main reason, however, is that there were six different Thomas Mallorys and scholars aren't sure which one wrote the book (assuming it is even one of those)!  The only clues available are small notations he included at the end of each chapter denoting himself as a "prisoner knight."  The funny thing is that the one that most scholars lean towards as the most likely candidate, Thomas Malleorre truly was a knight and a member of parliament but was also a villain of the worst sort who repeatedly extorted, robbed, kidnapped, and even raped those around him even while in office.  It is thought that he may have assembled this book (note "assembled" rather than composed-I will explain later) while in prison, hence the "prisoner knight."  As a side note; Malleorre translates roughly from the old french as "unfortunate one" or "ill omened."  Personally I think the latter is more true because he seems to have amassed a bit of money from his crimes or had a secret benefactor for he had an opulent funeral and was buried as a "valiant knight" despite his many misdeeds.  What would be unfortunate is if this great book is forever attributed to the wrong guy, especially if it's this guy.  If it is him, well-at least he's interesting!

About the book and edition

Le Morte d'Arthur was originally written by Mallory around 1470, it is guessed, and published in 1485 by the famous printer William Caxton and this continues to be the best known source of Arthurian literature.  This has been the basis of T.H. White's The Once and Future King (1958) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King (ca. late 1800's).  However, it should be known that Sir Thomas Mallory was working from preexisting stories in both old French and middle English and translating them and compiling them into something similar to the present volume.  Some of these tales were written back in the 13th century and certainly predate that. It was originally titled The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table.  Many changes were made by Caxton at the time of printing including retitling the book, subdividing the chapters and adding chapter headings.  Few changes have been made since then in regards to format, but you can find versions based in older or newer grammar styles and spelling based on preference.

What we are reading!

The book we are about to tackle sits at around 600 or so pages and the version is inconsequential as long as it is not a novelization. I am sure you can find free or cheap versions on Kindle if you have one, or there are free alternatives on the web in most cases if you don't.

Thanks and see you soon!
Joe