Sold by David Brass Rare Books, Inc., Calabasas, CA, U.S.A.
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The Seventh Edition of Sir Thomas Malory's "King Arthur" The First Edition for One Hundred and Eighty-Two Years MALORY, Thomas. The History of the Renowned Prince Arthur, King of Britain; with His Life and Death, and All His Glorious Battles. Likewise, the Noble Acts and Heroic Deeds of His Valiant Knights of the Round Table. In Two Volumes. London: Printed for Walker and Edwards., 1816. Seventh edition of the English epic, preceded only by the editions of 1485, 1498, 1529, 1557, 1578, and 1634, all but the last virtually unobtainable. Two twelvemo volumes (5 1/8 x 2 3/4 inches; 130 x 70 mm.). xxxii, 468; [iv], xvi, 488 pp. Complete with half-titles. Each volume with engraved frontispiece and added engraved title. Engraved frontispiece and title a little foxed. Full contemporary tan calf, expertly rebacked with the original spines laid down. Covers with decorative gilt borders, smooth spines decorated and lettered in gilt in compartments, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled. Volume 2 with the armorial bookplate of the Marsh Family of Gaynes Park, Epping on front paste-down. A very good set of this first edition since 1634. This was the first publication of Malory's Morte d'Arthur since the Stansby edition of 1634 (the first to be modernized to Jacobean standards). It responded to the passage of 182 years without an edition in print and a resulting demand that produced two competing editions in 1816 (the other edition is nearly identical to this one except that it was published in three volumes). No bibliography addresses the priority of the 1816 editions. However, the preface of the three-volume edition rails against the competition of this edition, to it's unimaginable that our edition didn't already exist in the marketplace to stimulate the attack. This edition is also by far the scarcer of the two. "The first printing of Malory's work was made by Caxton in 1485; it proved popular, and was reprinted, with some additions and changes, in 1498 and 1529 by Wynkyn de Worde who succeeded to Caxton's press. Three more editions followed at intervals down to the time of the English Civil War: William Copland's (1557), Thomas East's (1585), and William Stansby's (1634), each of which manifested additional changes and errors (including the omission of an entire leaf). Thereafter the book went out of fashion until the time of the Romantic revival of interest in all things medieval; the year 1816 saw a new edition by Walker and Edwards, and another one by Wilks, both based on the 1634 Stansby edition" Le Morte d'Arthur (originally le morte Darthur, meaning "The Death of Arthur" in Anglo-Norman French) is a 15th-century Middle English prose compilation by Sir Thomas Malory, retelling the legendary tales of King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table. To create a comprehensive narrative of Arthur's life - from his birth to his death - Malory collected, adapted, and restructured material from various French and English sources. Today, it remains one of the most famous works of Arthurian literature, serving as a primary reference for numerous writers since the 19th-century resurgence of the legend. Believed to have been written in prison during the late medieval period, Le Morte d'Arthur was completed around 1470 and first printed in 1485 by William Caxton. For centuries, the 1485 edition was regarded as the earliest known text until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in 1934. Modern editions, published under various titles, often modify the text by updating spelling, grammar, and pronoun usage to accommodate contemporary readers, with some versions also abridging or revising the content. Gaines A7.
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