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.