Leaving abundant scope for originality in selection,modification,and arrangement,as a compilation and translation it had in it that mechanical element which adds the touch of restfulness to literary work.No original,it is said,has yet been found for Book vii.,and it is possible that none will ever be forthcoming for chap.20of Book xviii.,which describes the arrival of the body of the Fair Maiden of Astolat at Arthur's court,or for chap.25of the same book,with its discourse on true love;but the great bulk of the work has been traced chapter by chapter to the "Merlin''of Robert de Borron and his successors (Bks.i.-iv.),the English metrical romance La Morte Arthur of the Thornton manuscript (Bk.v.),the French romances of Tristan (Bks.viii.-x.)and of Launcelot (Bks.vi.,xi.-xix.),and lastly to the English prose Morte Arthur of Harley MS.2252(Bks.xviii.,xx.,xxi.).As to Malory's choice of his authorities critics have not failed to point out that now and again he gives a worse version where a better has come down to us,and if he had been able to order a complete set of Arthurian manuscripts from his bookseller,no doubt he would have done even better than he did!But of the skill,approaching to original genius,with which he used the books from which he worked there is little dispute.
Malory died leaving his work obviously unrevised,and in this condition it was brought to Caxton,who prepared it for the press with his usual enthusiasm in the cause of good literature,and also,it must be added,with his usual carelessness.New chapters are sometimes made to begin in the middle of a sentence,and in addition to simple misprints there are numerous passages in which it is impossible to believe that we have the text as Malory intended it to stand.After Caxton's edition Malory's manuscript must have disappeared,and subsequent editions are differentiated only by the degree of closeness with which they follow the first.Editions appeared printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1498and 1529,by William Copland in 1559,by Thomas East about 1585,and by Thomas Stansby in 1634,each printer apparently taking the text of his immediate predecessor and reproducing it with modifications.Stansby's edition served for reprints in 1816and 1856(the latter edited by Thomas Wright);but in 1817an edition supervised by Robert Southey went back to Caxton's text,though to a copy (only two are extant,and only one perfect!)in which eleven leaves were supplied from Wynkyn de Worde's reprint.In 1868Sir Edward Strachey produced for the present publishers a reprint of Southey's text in modern spelling,with the substitution of current words for those now obsolete,and the softening of a handful of passages likely,he thought,to prevent the book being placed in the hands of boys.
In 1889a boon was conferred on scholars by the publication of Dr.H.Oskar Sommer's page-for-page reprint of Caxton's text,with an elaborate discussion of Malory's sources.Dr.Sommer's edition was used by Sir E.Strachey to revise his Globe text,and in 1897Mr.Israel Gollancz produced for the "Temple Classics''a very pretty edition in which Sir Edward Strachey's principles of modernisation in spelling and punctuation were adopted,but with the restoration of obsolete words and omitted phrases.As to the present edition,Sir Edward Strachey altered with so sparing a hand that on many pages differences between his version and that here printed will be looked for in vain;but the most anxious care has been taken to produce a text modernised as to its spelling,but in other respects in accurate accordance with Caxton's text,as represented by Dr Sommer's reprint.Obvious misprints have been silently corrected,but in a few cases notes show where emendations have been introduced from Wynkyn de Worde--not that Wynkyn had any more right to emend Caxton than we,but because even a printer's conjecture gains a little sanctity after four centuries.The restoration of obsolete words has necessitated a much fuller glossary,and the index of names has therefore been separated from it and enlarged.In its present form the index is the work of Mr.Henry Littlehales.
A.W.POLLARD.