Le Morte d’Arthur (Unabridged)

Thomas Malory · Sir Thomas Malory

Mar 2022 · Milkyway Media · AI-narrated by Marcus (from Google)

About this audiobook

Please note: This audiobook has been created using AI voice.

Thomas Malory did not invent the stories of Arthur, King of Britain, but it is fair to say that he reinvented them. Although the legends were already hundreds of years old by the fifteenth century, the contemporary stories of Arthur in Malory’s day were primarily French. The French had added many of the elements familiar to modern readers, among them Lancelot, and the search for the Holy Grail. Malory combined, edited, and added some of his own material to the stories available to him, and in the process created a uniquely British work. (It was his printer Caxton who gave it a French name.) Le Morte d’Arthur is the source material for almost all modern retellings of King Arthur and his knights, from Hollywood movies and musicals to Nobel-prize winning writers.

Malory’s identity is still in some dispute, as there are several men of various spellings of the name to choose from. Sir Thomas Malory from Newbold Revel in Warwickshire is the most popular choice, but his life of crime—he was a rapist and serial thief at the minimum—seems to be at odds with the acts of chivalry and moral code present in this book. It is known from the author’s own notes that he wrote the book while in prison; perhaps he was trying to make amends for his crimes. Regardless, the result was to give new life to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

About the author

Sir Thomas Malory (1400?-1471) of Newbold Revel served with Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick; was knighted in 1442, and was elected a member of parliament in 1445. For whatever reason, he turned to a life of irresponsible violence and spent most of his last twenty years in prison until his death in 1471. It was during his imprisonment that he composed, translated, and adapted his great rendering of Arthurian material, which has served as source and influence for all succeeding Arthurian literature, including Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Sir Thomas Malory, 1405 - 1471 Sir Thomas Malory's works (consisting of the legends of Sir Lancelot, Sir Gareth, Sir Tristram, and the Holy Grail, as well as the stories of King Arthur's coming to the throne, his wars with the Emperor Lucius, and his death) are the most influential expression of Arthurian material in English. The author's sources are principally French romances; his own contributions are substantial, however, and the result is a vigorous and resonant prose. "Le Morte d'Arthur," finished between March 1469 and March 1470, was first printed in 1485 by William Caxton, the earliest English printer. Malory is presumed to have been a knight from an old Warwickshire family, who inherited his father's estates about 1433 and spent 20 years of his later life in jail accused of various crimes. The discovery of a manuscript version of "Le Morte d'Arthur" in 1934 in the library of Winchester College, supported the identification of Malory the author with Malory the traitor, burglar, and rapist. It showed that many of the inconsistencies in the printed text were traceable to the printing house rather than to the author. The most reliable modern version, therefore, is one like Eugene Vinaver's that is based on the Winchester manuscript.