Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

This late-fourteenth-century alliterative romance, written in a North West Midland dialect, follows Sir Gawain, a knight of Arthur's court. At a New Year feast a green-clad challenger invites a beheading game; Gawain strikes and must seek the Green Chapel a year later to receive the return blow. On the journey he is hosted at a castle where the lord's wife tests him with gifts and kisses while the lord hunts. The poem treats courtesy, courage, and the keeping of bargains. It is a chivalric narrative in four fits, not a cycle of the whole Arthurian court.

Bound in green canvas with an armorial design in brown. Endleaves with an illustration in pale brown and black by Burnett. Dark brown slipcase.