Le Morte D'Arthur

"I've just finished reading Joseph Glaser's Le Morte D'Arthur. I'm very pleased with it: the introduction is helpful without becoming an extended essay, the suggested reading seems solid and diverse, and the index is VERY useful, even for someone who has read Malory before. At last, a reader can keep all the knights and ladies straight! A fine entry point to a grand text, and when I next have an occasion to teach a course involving chivalry, I'll plan to use this very affordable edition."  
      —Craig Caldwell, Department of History, Appalachian State University

SKU
27237g

Sir Thomas Malory
Condensed and modernized, with an Introduction, by Joseph Glaser

March 2015 - 368 pp.

Grouped product items
Format ISBN Price Qty
Cloth 978-1-62466-360-4
$48.00
Paper 978-1-62466-359-8
$16.00
Instructor Examination (Review) Copy 978-1-62466-359-8
$2.00

eBook available for $13.50. Click HERE for more information and purchasing options.

This brisk retelling of Le Morte D'Arthur highlights the narrative drive, humor, and poignancy of Sir Thomas Malory’s original while updating his fifteenth-century English and selectively pruning over-elaborate passages that can try the patience of modern readers.

The result is an adaptation that readers can enjoy as a fresh approach to Malory's sprawling masterpiece. The book's most famous episodes—the sword in the stone, the cataclysmic final battle—are all here, while lesser-known key episodes stand forth with new brightness and clarity.

The text is accompanied by an up-to-date bibliography, including websites and video resources, and a descriptive index keyed—like the retelling itself—to the book and chapter divisions of William Caxton's first printed edition of 1485.

 

Reviews:

"I've just finished reading Joseph Glaser's Le Morte D'Arthur. I'm very pleased with it: the introduction is helpful without becoming an extended essay, the suggested reading seems solid and diverse, and the index is VERY useful, even for someone who has read Malory before. At last, a reader can keep all the knights and ladies straight! A fine entry point to a grand text, and when I next have an occasion to teach a course involving chivalry, I'll plan to use this very affordable edition."  
      —Craig Caldwell, Department of History, Appalachian State University

 

"A highly readable, reduced, and modernized Malory. . . . The effective condensation of a seemingly uncontainable network of narratives is an impressive feat. . . . Glaser's storylines are distinct, not dense, his dialogue is concise, not digressive, and his language is unassuming, not luxuriant. While these features do not match most readers' impressions of Malory's style, his Arthurian tales of adventure, love, death, and betrayal are all here for a new readership to relish.
      "[T]his new narrative brings the intersections of plot lines to the fore, helping readers to see the larger structural connections between seemingly disparate episodes and themes. With some of the density removed, readers can more readily see storylines that often get submerged, such as the ongoing feud between the families of King Pellinor and King Lot that starts, stops, and reignites across multiple books. Glaser even appends a detailed index of characters and important objects that includes short descriptions of their appearances in sequence throughout the text. This index is exceedingly helpful because it highlights unifying themes and character development as well as clearly demonstrates that the main character of the Morte is Lancelot, not Arthur. Whereas Arthur's index entry is approximately a page and a half long, Tristram's is two pages, and Lancelot's is close to three. The index also reveals amusing repetitions and contradictions, including two dead Colgrevaunces and five Elaines."
      —Alex Mueller, University of Massachusetts, Boston, in The Medieval Review

 

"Glaser’s project of modernizing and condensing Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur is refreshingly successful. Both an extremely accessible introduction to the text for beginners and a handy reference tool for experts, the compact volume can easily be enjoyed by all modern readers." 
      —Rachel Levinson-Emley, University of California, Santa Barbara, in Comitatus

 

"Preserves most of the original and provides a simplified reduction for the bewildering array of plot lines and characters who wind in, and out, and often back in again to the narrative thread. Hackett Publishing Company and Joseph Glaser have provided an aesthetically appealing, serviceable, and inexpensive addition to the Malory shelf.”
      —Katherine Haynes, Aquinas College Nashville, in Sixteenth Century Journal

 

Contents:

 
Preface
Book 1: The Sword in the Stone
Book 2: Balin and Balan
Book 3: Guenever
Book 4: Merlin and Nimue
Book 5: The War with Rome
Book 6: Lancelot
Book 7: Sir Gareth, Who Was Called Beaumains
Book 8: Tristram
Book 9: La Cote Male Taile and Others
Book 10: The Second Book of Tristram
Book 11: The Second Book of Lancelot
Book 12: Lancelot’s Madness
Book 13: The Sangrail
Book 14: Percival
Book 15: The Third Book of Lancelot
Book 16: Sir Gawain and Sir Bors
Book 17: Sir Galahad
Book 18: Lancelot and Guenever
Book 19: The Battle over Guenever I
Book 20: The Battle over Guenever II
Book 21: Le Morte D’Arthur
Index

 

About the Author:

Joseph Glaser is Professor Emeritus of English, Western Kentucky University. Four of his previous works—Troilus and Criseyde in Modern Verse, The Canterbury Tales in Modern Verse, Middle English Poetry in Modern Verse, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—are also published by Hackett.