AN ECLECTIC LIBRARY

Arthurian History and Romance

History

The works here also appear in the British History shelf, but we have picked out the ones that deal specifically with Arthur or the time when Arthur, if there was such a man, would have lived.

Gildas

De Excidio Britanniae. Ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum recensuit Josephus Stephenson. Londini: Sumptibus Societatis, 1838.

The Works of Gildas and Nennius. Translated from the Latin by J. A. Giles, LL.D. Bohn, 1841.
At Google Books.

Nennius (see also Gildas, above)

The Historia Brittonum, commonly attributed to Nennius; from a manuscript lately discovered in the Library of the Vatican Palace at Rome; edited in the tenth century, by Mark the Hermit; with an English version, fac simile of the original, notes and illustrations. By the Rev. W. Gunn, B.D. 1819.

Geoffrey of Monmouth

The Chronicle of the Kings of Britain; translated from the Welsh copy attributed to Tysilio; collated with several other copies, and illustrated with copious notes. By the Rev. Peter Roberts, A.M. 1811.

The British History of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In twelve books. Translated from the Latin, by A. Thompson, Esq. A new edition, revised and corrected by J. A. Giles, Ll.D. 1842.

Six Old English Chronicles, of which two are now first translated from the monkish Latin originals. Ethelwerd’s Chronicle. Asser’s Life of Alfred. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s British history. Gildas. Nennius, and Richard of Cirencester. Edited, with illustrative notes, by J. A. Giles, D.C.L. London: Bell & Daldy, [1848].

The Brut; or, Chronicles of England, edited from Ms. Rawl. B 171, Bodleian Library, c., by Friedrich W. D. Brie, Ph.D. Early English Text Society, 1906.

Part I (1906).

Part II (1908).

Romance

Sir Thomas Malory has his own page.

The Lancelot or Vulgate Cycle

Attributed to Walter Map. The theories as to the actual author are wonderfully various, and the most plausible seems almost absurd: that the various parts were written by different authors working under the direction of a master architect—rather the way a television series might be written by a stable of writers under the watchful eye of the creator.

The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, Edited from Manuscripts in the British Museum by H. Oskar Sommer. This is the original text in Old French, but with a thorough and helpful running marginal summary in English.

Volume I: Lestoire del Saint Graal

Volume II: Lestoire de Merlin

Volume III: Le Livre de Lancelot del Lac, Part I
(Another copy)

Volume IV: Le Livre de Lancelot del Lac, Part II
(Another copy)

Volume V: Le Livre de Lancelot del Lac, Part III

Volume VI: Les Aventures ou la queste del Saint Graal; La Mort le Roi Artus

Volume VII: Supplement: Le Livre d'Artus
(Another copy)

Index of Names and Places to Volumes I-VII
(Another copy)

Le Morte Arthur. A Middle English metrical romance. Edited by Samuel B. Hemingway. Boston, New York, Chicago: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912.

The History of the Holy Grail, Englisht, about 1450 A.D., by Henry Lonelich, skynner, from the French prose of Sires Robiers de Borron. Re-edited from the Unique Paper MS in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Fredk. J. Furnivall, Esq., M.A. Early English Text Society, 1878.

Parts I and II (1874).

Parts III and IV (1878).
(Another copy)

Part V (Introduction, 1905)
(Another copy)
(Another copy)


Merlin;
or, the Early History of King Arthur: A Prose Romance (about 1450-1460 A.D.). Edited from the unique MS. in the University Library, Cambridge, by Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A. Early English Text Society, 1899.

Volume I.

Volume II.

King Arthur and the Table Round: Tales Chiefly After the Old French of Chrestien de Troyes, by William Wells Newell, 1897-1898

Vol. I.
Vol. II.