Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, 1947-1987: Author, Title, Text

Abstract

In afterword for his book, Malory states that it ended ix yere of reygne of Kyng Edward Fourth (1469-70), but we have no copy of book from his own hand. For almost five hundred years book was known ultimately only from edition by William Caxton, who indicated in his preface that he printed it after a copye unto me delyverd and in his colophon that he finished printing the last day of Juyl, yere of Our Lord MCCCCLXXXV; we do not have manuscript copy from which Caxton and his compositors produced book. Then in 1934 Walter F. Oakeshott discovered in Fellows Library at Winchester College, England, a manuscript of Malory's book, roughly contemporary with Caxton's edition, prepared by two scribes, lacking nineteen leaves including beginning and ending and differing rather considerably from Caxton's text.1 At time of that discovery Eugene Vinaver, well-known Arthurian scholar who had earlier published important studies concerning Malory and his book, was preparing a new edition of Caxton's print, and Oakeshott generously made Winchester manuscript available for Vinaver's use. The major result of his work appeared thirteen years later in 1947 an edition entitled The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, in three volumes with extensive introduction and commentary.2