The Saga of Gisli: Son of Sour

Allen, Ralph B.

Published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936

About this Item

First edition. Boards lightly foxed, pencil name on copyright page, a few chips from jacket edges, jacket toned. Binding tight and square, text clean, bright, and unmarked. 1936 Hard Cover. 148 pp. Translated into English from the original Icelandic by Ralph B. Allen, illustrated with woodcuts by Rockwell Kent. The saga of Gisli the Outlaw is one of the sagas of Icelanders. It tells the story of Gisli, a tragic hero who must kill one of his brothers-in-law to avenge another brother-in-law. Gisli is forced to stay on the run for thirteen years before he is hunted down and killed. The events depicted in the saga took place between 860 and 980. Gisla saga survives in thirty-three manuscripts and fragments from the Middle Ages down to the twentieth century. It is generally thought to have been composed in written form in the first half of the thirteenth century, but the earliest manuscript, the fragment Reykjavik, Stofnun Arna Magnussonar, AM 445 c I 4to, is from around 1400 and the earliest extensive text in AM 556a 4to, from the later fifteenth. The saga is generally thought to exist in three main versions originating in the Middle Ages: the 'fragmentary version' (attested by AM 445 c I 4to, often known in scholarship as version 'B' for 'brot'; the 'shorter version' (attested primarily in AM 556a 4to, Eggertsbok, often referred to in scholarship as 'E' for 'eldri' ['earlier'] or 'M' for 'minni' ['shorter'], and from which most other manuscripts seem to be descended); the 'longer version' (attested primarily in two eighteenth-century scholarly transcripts of a lost medieval manuscript known as the 'Membrana regia deperdita': AM 149 fol and Copenhagen, Det kongelige bibliotek, NKS 1181 fol. This version is often referred to as 'Y' for 'yngri' ['later'] or 'S' for 'storre' ['longer']. Only two other manuscripts contain this version.). The longer version differs from the shorter mainly in having a profoundly different (and longer) version of the opening sequence of the saga's narrative, set in Norway. The parts set in Iceland are substantially similar.

Seller Inventory # 2351853

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Saga of Gisli: Son of Sour
• Publisher: Harcourt, Brace and Company
• Publication Date: 1936
• Language: English
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Weight: 21 ounces