Malory: The Knight Who Became King Arthur's Chronicler Book

Virtually all modern versions of the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are derived from a single book: Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1469), one of the world's most renowned literary works. Yet the author, a fifteenth-century knight, has remained an enigma for centuries. Existing historical records imply that Malory was a criminal—accused of rape, ambush, rustling, and attacks on abbeys—and was imprisoned for most of his life.

Using evidence from new historical research and deductions from the only known manuscript copy of Malory's celebrated work, Christina Hardyment brilliantly resolves the contradictions about an extraordinary man and a life marked equally by great achievement and devastating disgrace. Malory is the fascinating chronicle of a loyal soldier enmeshed in the tangled politics of the Wars of the Roses. It is the story of a connoisseur of literature and exemplary writer who created a masterpiece meant to inspire princes and knights to high endeavors and noble acts.

Publishers Weekly

Thomas Malory (1405-1471), the great English compiler of the Arthurian legends, lived the chivalric values of his stories in the chaotic times of the Hundred Years' War and the War of the Roses. British historian Hardyment (The Future of the Family) devotes much time to political context, but her more interesting material, drawing on scholarship dating as far back as the 16th century, shows that though Malory's work was "distinctly idiosyncratic," there is evidence of the influence of French romances, early English histories and popular ballads. Most fascinating are the clues Hardyment finds to Malory's life in the unique additions he made to the known stories, including mentions of English and Welsh localities, references to contemporary events and an emphasis on ideals and religious faith rather than love. Malory, the author shows, was most original in his tales of Lancelot, suggesting an identification with his noble but flawed hero. Hardyment plausibly explains charges of assault and rape against Malory as politically motivated and argues that the writer spent his last years in jail because of his loyalty to Henry VI. Camelot echoes marvelously through Hardyment's biography, making palpable Malory's desire for valor and honor in his own time. 16 pages of color, 8 pages of b&w illus., maps. (Aug. 1) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.