First full-scale account of the use of the Arthurian legend in the long twelfth century.

An examination of the numerous adaptations of Malory's Morte Darthur for children in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Grail is one of the most enduring literary motifs in publishing history. In spite of an ever-changing world, the reading public has maintained a fascination for this enigmatic object, as well as the various adventures and characters associated with it. But the nature and reception of the Grail have not remained static. Thanks to the fact that the first known author of a Grail story, Chrétien de Troyes, died c.1180-90 before completing his tale and revealing the meaning of the Grail, authors and publishers across history have reimagined, reinterpreted and re-packaged Grail literature so as to appeal to the developing tastes and interests of their target audiences. This book analyses the developing publication practices associated with French Grail literature in medieval and Renaissance France. Arguing for pre-print book production as constituting an early incarnation of a publishing trade, it discusses such matters as the disclosure of authorship and patronage, and the writing and formatting of blurbs, as well as tactics of compilation as production techniques that bear evidence of common commercial motivations between pre- and post-print publication. The distinctive investigation of manuscript and early-print evidence brings medieval and early-modern publishers and their concepts of both product and market into focus. Leah Tether is Reader in Medieval Literature and Digital Cultures, and Co-Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol. She is the author of The Continuations of Chrétien's Perceval: Content and Construction, Extension and Ending (D.S. Brewer, 2012).

It is hard to overstate the importance of this trilogy of prose romances in the development of the legend of the Holy Grail and in the evolution of Arthurian literature as a whole. They give a crucial new impetus to the story of the Grail by establishing a provenance for the sacred vessel - and for the Round Table itself - in the Biblical past; and through the controlling figure of Merlin they link the story of Joseph of Arimathea with the mythical British history of Vortigern and Utherpendragon, the birth of Arthur, and the sword in the stone, and then with the knightly adventures of Perceval's Grail quest and the betrayal and death of Arthur, creating the very first Arthurian cycle. Ambitious, original and complete in its conception, this trilogy - translated here for the first time - is a finely paced, vigorous piece of storytelling that provides an outstanding example of the essentially oral nature of early prose.
NIGEL BRYANT is head of drama at Marlborough College and he has also provided editions in English of The High Book of the Grail: A translation of the thirteenth century romance of Perlesvaus.

The red-ink names that decorate the Winchester manuscript of Malory's Morte Darthur are striking; yet until now, no-one has asked why the rubrication exists. This book explores the uniqueness and thematic significance of the physical layout of the Morte in its manuscript context, arguing that the layout suggests, and the correlations between manuscript design and narrative theme confirm, that the striking arrangement is likely to have been the product of authorial design rather than something unusual dreamed up by patron, scribe, reader, or printer.
The introduction offersa thorough account of not only the textual tradition of the Morte, but also the ways in which scholarship to date has not done enough with the manuscript contexts of Malory's Arthuriad. The book then goes on to establish the singularity and likely provenance of Winchester's rubrication of names. In the second half of the study the author elucidates the narrative significance of this rubrication pattern, outlining striking connections between manuscript layout and major narrative events, characters, and themes. He argues that the manuscript mise-en-page underscores Malory's interest in human character and knighthood, creating a memorializing function similar to the many inscribed tombs that dominate the landscape of the Morte's narrative pages. In short, Winchester's design creates a memorializing tomb for Arthurian chivalry.

K.S. Whetter is Professor of English, Acadia University.

The mysterious and haunting Grail makes its first appearance in literature in Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval at the end of the twelfth century. But Chrétien never finished his poem, leaving an unresolved story and an incomplete picture of the Grail. It was, however, far too attractive an idea to leave. Not only did it inspire quite separate works; his own unfinished poem was continued and finally completed by no fewer than four other writers. The Complete Story of the Grail is the first ever translation of the whole of the rich and compelling body of tales contained in Chrétien's poem and its four Continuations, which are finally attracting the scholarly attention they deserve. Besides Chrétien's original text, there are the anonymous First Continuation (translated here in its fullest version), the Second Continuation attributed to Wauchier de Denain, and the intriguing Third and Fourth Continuations - probably written simultaneously, with no knowledge of each other's work - by Manessier and Gerbert de Montreuil. Two other poets were drawn to create preludes explaining the background to Chrétien's story, and translated here also are their works: The Elucidation Prologue and Bliocadran. Only in this, The Story of the Grail's complete form, can the reader appreciate the narrative skill and invention of the medieval poets and their surprising responses to Chrétien's theme - not least their crucial focus on the knight as a crusader. Equally, Chrétien's original poem was almost always copied in conjunction with one or more of the Continuations, so this translation represents how most medieval readers would have encountered it. Nigel Bryant's previous translations from Medieval French include Perlesvaus - the High Book of the Grail, Robert de Boron's trilogy Merlin and the Grail, the Medieval Romance of Alexander, The True Chronicles of Jean le Bel and Perceforest.

The late-medieval adaptions and compiliations of the Arthurian story are a European phenomenon that has sparked both mystification and controversy. Often dismissed as nostalgic recreations that attempt to halt the literary tide, these ambitious projects saw adaptors from across Western Europe combining a vast array of prose and verse sources from different languages into encyclopedic narrative chronologies of King Arthur and his court. Ranging from ornate verse adaptations to heavily condensed prose works, the resulting texts reflect a process of translating, cutting and arranging Arthurian material into new literary incarnations, which nonetheless retain recognisable versions of the Arthurian story. This study re-evaluates Malory's 'Morte Darthur' and four broadly contemporary European romance collections, including Jean Gonnot's French BN.fr.112 manuscript, Ulrich Fuetrer's German 'Buch der Abenteuer', the Dutch 'Lancelot' Compilation, and the Italian 'Tavola Ritonda', in the context of this adaptative process. In doing so, it investigates how the adaptors respond to the shared structural and stylistic challenges of incorporating new material into the well-known story of King Arthur and comes to intriguing conclusions about the ways in which the narrative demands of late Arthurian adaptations invited authors to populate the Arthurian court with new and more complex protagonists. Miriam Edlich-Muth currently teaches Old and Middle English language and literature at the University of Cambridge.

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 notion of Continuation in medieval literature is a familiar one - but difficult to define precisely. Despite the existence of important texts which are commonly referred to as Continuations, such as ‘Le Roman de la Rose’, ‘Le Chevalier de la Charrette’ and, of course, the ‘Perceval Continuations’, the mechanics and processes involved in actually producing a Continuation have found themselves indistinguishable from those associated with other forms of medieval ‘réécriture’. The ‘Perceval Continuations’ (composed c.1200-1230) constitute a vast body of material which incorporates four separately authored Continuations, each of which seeks to further, in some way, the unfinished ‘Perceval’ of Chrétien de Troyes - though they are not merely responses to his work. Chronologically, they were composed one after the other, and the next in line picks up where the previous one left off; they thus respond intertextually to each other as well as to Chrétien, and only one actually furnishes the story as a whole with an ending. Here, these fascinating texts are used as a lens for examining, defining and distinguishing the whole concept of a Continuation; the author also employs theories as to what constitutes an 'end' and what is 'unfinished', alongside scrutiny of other medieval 'ends' and Continuations. Dr Leah Tether is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Cultures of the Digital Economy Institute, Anglia Ruskin University.

Peter Field, Professor of English at the University of Wales, Bangor, is a distinguished Arthurian scholar (and vice-president of the International Arthurian Society) whose work has focused particularly on Malory's 'Morte Darthur'. This special interest is reflected by the contributors to this volume, but a wide variety of other Arthurian and associated material is also covered in the twenty-seven studies. The chapters range over the whole field of Arthurian vernacular texts and include new studies of early French and German texts as well as an analysis of the impact of Arthurian materials on Galician-Portuguese poetry. Many provide new insights into Malory's text and sources, and these culminate in reflections on Malory's impact on one later American reader, Mark Twain. Collectively the chapters on Malory substantiate a the claim that Malory is a keen and critical reader of his source texts, and that he is a powerful stylist. Contributors BRIAN ALLEN, ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD, FANNI BOGDANOW, DEREK S. BREWER, GEOFFREY BROMILEY, HELEN COOPER, JANET M, COWEN, ROSALIND FIELD, LINDA GOWANS, DOUGLAS GRAY, PHILLIPA HARDMAN, AMELIA HUTCHINSON, EDWARD D. KENNEDY, ELSPETH M. KENNEDY, NORRIS J. LACY, MARGARET LOCHERBIE-CAMERON, ROGER MIDDLETON, DAVID MILLS, MALDWYN MILLS, YUJI NAKAO, SHUNICHI NOGUCHI, RALPH NORRIS, AD PUTTER, RALUCA RADULESCU, FRANCOISE LE SAUX, JANE TAYLOR, NEIL E. THOMAS, KEVIN S. WHETTER, ANDREA WILLIAMS.