Le Morte d’Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory’s book of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the Round table. Edited by Alfred W. Pollard. “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.”

Le Morte d'Arthur (originally spelled Le Morte Darthur, ungrammatical Middle French for

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A retelling of four Arthurian legends, "The Sword in the Stone," "Excalibur," "The Lady of the Lake," and "The Last Great Battle," which feature Merlin, King Arthur, and other familiar figures. In this collection of three exciting Arthurian tales, Merlin the magician watches over young Arthur as he rises to become king of all England. But enemies threaten Arthur: Morgan le Fay, the witch, and Mordred, the traitor, plot to bring about the king's destruction....

The first book John Steinbeck read as a child was the Caxton Morte d'Arthur, and he considered it one of the most challenging tasks of his career to modernize the stories of King Arthur. "These stories are alive even in those of us who have not read them," he says. "And, in our day, we are perhaps impatient with the words and the stately rhythms of [Thomas] Malory. I wanted to set the stories down in meaning as they were written, leaving out nothing...

Tells the story of King Arthur with all the elements of Sir Thomas Malory's classic tale: Removing the sword Excalibur from the stone; The Round Table's noble birth and tragic decline; The heroic attemps to recover the Holy Grail; The shifting balance of power between Merlin and Morgana.

Presents the epic story of King Arthur, the wizard Merlin, his Knights of the Round Table, the sword Excalibur, and his tragic and poetic death, in a prose translation of the classic legend, featuring an introduction by acclaimed poet Robert Graves.