Le Morte Darthur

Completed in the 1460s and printed by Caxton in 1485, this prose cycle gathers the Matter of Britain into a consecutive English narrative. It runs from Arthur's hidden birth and the sword in the stone through the founding of the Round Table, the wars with Rome, the fellowship of Lancelot, Tristram, and the Grail knights, and the adultery that splits the court. Malory compiles and recasts French and English sources into episodes of tournament, quest, and feud. The work is both a romance of chivalric adventure and a history of how the Arthurian fellowship destroys itself from within.

Bound in black Nigerian goatskin with gilt decorations, gilt spine-titling. Grey ribbon marker. Laid paper endpapers. Text block edge dyed gilt. Illustrated monochrome frontispiece and 20 monochrome plates. Separate leaflet by Anthony Edwards "Thomas Malory, the Morte D'arthur and Aubrey Beardsley". Black cloth two-volume clamshell box, leather spine-label titled in gold.