Le Morte Darthur: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions) - Softcover

Sir Thomas Malory

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393974642 ISBN 13: 9780393974645

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003

Synopsis

The text is unabridged, with original spelling and extensive, easy-to-use marginal glosses and footnotes.

No other edition accurately represents the actual (and likely authorial) divisions of the text as attested to by its two surviving witnesses―Caxton’s 1485 print and, especially, the famous Winchester Manuscript. The Winchester Manuscript is now generally agreed to be the more authentic of the two earlier texts. The Norton Critical Edition is the first edition of Malory to recover important elements of this manuscript: paragraphing marginal annotations hierarchies of narrative division as signaled by size and decorative intricacy of initial capitals and font changes The Norton Critical Edition also represents, in black-letter font, the striking rubrication of proper names in the Winchester Manuscript, reconstructing for readers something of an authentic medieval reading experience, one which gives visual support to Malory’s extraordinary representation, in character and setting, of a chivalric ideal. No other student edition of Malory contains such extensive contextual and critical support.

About this title

From the Author:

There has been humour, heartbreak, and breathtaking visions, and the continuous excitement of trying to capture the beauty of Malory's scenes in watercolour. In the quietest moments, I liked to imagine ghosts roosting in my studio - from distant figures who may have existed and inspired the legend, to the storytellers, artists, and their creations that have served it. There are rewards in such good company and I feel most privileged to have contributed to a tradition so close to my heart, and served a world of such beauty.....beauty with a serrated edge. Anna Marie Ferguson

From the Inside Flap:

The legends of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table have inspired some of the greatest works of literature--from Cervantes's Don Quixote to Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Although many versions exist, Malory's stands as the classic rendition. Malory wrote the book while in Newgate Prison during the last three years of his life; it was published some fourteen years later, in 1485, by William Caxton. The tales, steeped in the magic of Merlin, the powerful cords of the chivalric code, and the age-old dramas of love and death, resound across the centuries.
The stories of King Arthur, Lancelot, Queen Guenever, and Tristram and Isolde seem astonishingly moving and modern. Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur endures and inspires because it embodies mankind's deepest yearnings for brotherhood and community, a love worth dying for, and valor, honor, and chivalry.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0393974642
• ISBN 13: 9780393974645
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1008
• Editor: Stephen H. A. Shepherd