Sir Thomas Malory

Introduction

The single known manuscript of Malory's Morte D'Arthur (MaT 1) was discovered by Walter Oakeshott in 1934 among the manuscripts in the Warden and Fellows' Library, Winchester College. Through a public fund it was bought by the British Library on 26 March 1976 for £150,000.

The text of the manuscript differs considerably from that printed by William Caxton in 1485. However, research by Lotte Hellinga, using modern scientific aids, has revealed that the manuscript must have passed through Caxton's hands, for it bears unmistakable smudges of printers' ink and the impressions of certain of Caxton's types. Unless he finally turned to one or more other manuscript for his text (or for part of his text), it is possible that Caxton's printed text is his own edited version of Malory's work based on the extant manuscript. This interpretation remains, however, open to debate.

Additional research by Hilton Kelliher into the provenance of the manuscript, through the name of a former owner, Richard Followell, lends support to its authority by linking it with the Malory family in Northamptonshire.

One other item recorded below (MaT 2) is a sixteenth-century index of Malory's work, not generally known until its appearance at auction in 1978.

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.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 55000 through 59999 (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.

Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya ([no shelfmark])

Introduction

Prose

Contents