Le Morte Darthur

LE MORTE DARTHUR

Sir Thomas Malory’s Book

of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights

of the Round Table

The Text of Caxton

EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

SIR EDWARD STRACHEY, BART.

Si quando indigenas revocabo in carmina reges,

Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem;

Aut dicam invictae sociali foedere mensae

Magnanimos Heroas.—Milton.

London

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK

1893

Oxford

HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

TO

FRANCES STRACHEY

HER FATHER INSCRIBES THIS BOOK

THE INTRODUCTION TO WHICH

COULD NOT HAVE BEEN NOW RE-WRITTEN

WITHOUT HER HELP

IN MAKING THE EAR FAMILIAR WITH WORDS

WHICH THE EYE CAN NO LONGER READ.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

The Introduction to the first edition of this volume included an account of the Text in the various editions of Sir Thomas Malory’s ‘Morte Darthur,’ and an attempt to estimate the character and worth of his book. The publication of Dr. Sommer’s edition of the Text and Prolegomena, demands that I should complete my bibliography by an account of this important work; and it enables me, by help of this learned writer’s new information, to confirm, while enlarging, my former criticism. I have, therefore, revised and re-written the two first sections of the Introduction. The Essay on Chivalry remains, but for a few verbal changes, as it was first printed.

Sutton Court,

November, 1891.