I highly recommend this edition. As for Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table itself, the endless quest for the Holy Grail does drag the pace down a bit, but the highlights are truly remarkable. Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristram and Isolde, Gawain—these are such incredible characters. I started with T.H. White, and that will always be my favorite version of this myth, but there are so many fascinating revelations about the craft of storytelling to be found in Thomas Ma...

Sir Thomas Malory's original work, which he titled 'The Hoole Book of Kyng Arthur and of His Noble Knyghtes of The Rounde Table', was thankfully shortened by his editor to the title of the final chapter: Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table. Most scholars consider it the definitive English-language version of the story. It pulls from nearly 1,000 years of history, tradition, and lore to create this 'final' version. What makes this classic book review so interesting ...

Is this the definitive Arthurian legend? Perhaps.It took me twenty-five years as a devoted fan of mythology and fantasy to finally sit down with Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table. Ultimately, I only picked it up because I’ve been crossing paths with so many people who know far more about Arthurian literature than I do. Sadly, the academic weight of the text made it hard for me to truly enjoy. I’m sure it’s a masterpiece, but I just couldn't connect with it the way...

It happened one Pentecost when King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table had all assembled at the castle of Kynke Kenadonne and were waiting, as was customary, for some unusual event to occur before settling down to the feast, that Sir Gawain saw through the window three gentlemen riding toward the castle, accompanied by a dwarf.I fully expected to dislike Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table. The prospect of five hundred pages of jousting knights struck me as e...

WHY AREN'T THERE EIGHT OF US? ”The Sword in the Stone”, 1963, my favorite animated film ever.Why is Lancelot missing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyKof...It’s a historical inaccuracy: there were dozens, even hundreds of knights sitting at the Round Table, certainly not just eight. They were so numerous that I even question the very existence of the legendary Table itself, which, for reasons of space and capacity, couldn't possibly have been round—it must have been a classic refectory table. ...

(I read this book as part of a reading project I have undertaken with some other nerdy friends in which we read The Novel: A Biography and some of the other texts referenced by Schmidt.)This book reads like some jag-off had some time to kill in prison and was just putting words down on paper to keep himself from being super bored.Oh, wait.So no one really knows who Thomas Malory was, apparently, which is a story in and of itself much more interesting than this collection of loosely connected tho...

I FINALLY finished this last night. No exaggeration: I have been reading Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table by Thomas Malory for six months. Not six continuous months, mind you. I kept the book by my bed and would try to read a little bit every night, but I could never manage to read more than twenty pages in a single sitting, and I would usually be reading another book in the meantime and forget about the text for weeks at a time.This thing is a hell of a slog, in...

I recently finished reading Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table by Thomas Malory, and it was a fascinating experience. The book defies easy categorization; it’s not quite a novel, not an epic poem, and not just a collection of myths. It feels like a blend of folk tales rooted in a Christian worldview, yet it remains incredibly earthy and grounded. It can be repetitive, but once you fall into the rhythm of the prose, it’s far from boring. If you set aside your modern...

I’m so glad I finally picked up Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table. I’ve been obsessed with King Arthur stories ever since I was a kid reading a retelling by Enid Blyton. I actually read this for my Late Medieval Literature class, but honestly, I would have gotten around to it eventually anyway. The edition I read was an abridgment, which was probably for the best because some parts get pretty tedious as it is. The introduction to this version is quite interesting—...

At long last, I have completed the monumental quest of 937 pages of Ye Olde English! 937 pages of damsels and knights smiting one another, breaking their spears to pieces, and endless tournaments, jousting, and villainous kings acting treacherously... oops, there I go again. I am just! so! happy! I have been reading Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table by Thomas Malory since February (it is now November), and although I thought I was prepared because of that one Chri...