Sir Thomas Malory

Prose

Morte D'Arthur

First published by William Caxton (London, 1485). The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugene Vinaver (Oxford, 1947); 2nd edition, revised (Oxford, 1967); 3rd edition, revised by P.J.C. Field, 3 vols (Oxford, 1990).

MaT 1

Copy in two scribal hands; used by William Caxton; imperfect, now consisting of part of Chapter VIII until near the end of Chapter CLXXII; 473 leaves, folio. c.1470-83.

Once owned by one Richard Followell, probably a member of the Fowlwell or Fellwell family of Litchborough, Northamptonshire, tenants to a branch of the Malory family.

Edited from this MS, with three facsimile pages, in The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugène Vinaver, 3 vols (Oxford, 1947; 2nd edition revised, 1967); facsimile edition of the MS in The Winchester Malory: A Facsimile, introduced by N.R. Ker, EETS 884 (Oxford, 1976). Discussed extensively in Lotte Hellinga and Hilton Kelliher, ‘The Malory Manuscript’, BLJ, 3 (1977), 91-113. Facsimile of f. 45r in Hilton Kelliher and Sally Brown, English Literary Manuscripts (British Library, 1986), No. 1, p. 4.

British Library, Add. MS 59678.

MaT 2

A compilation of the principal deeds of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table as they appear in Malory's Morte D'Arthur, written by one John Grinken; comprising five pages of preface, seven pages of alphabetical list of names (a further page now missing), and 147 entries, incomplete, with a number of armorial devices; 54 leaves (including eleven blanks), slightly imperfect and lacking a title. 2nd half 16th century.

Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), book and manuscript collector: Phillipps MS 100. Christie's, 29 November 1978, lot 27, to Quaritch.

Toshiyuki Takamiya, Tokyo, [no shelfmark].