1912 Rare Book - Le Morte Darthur, Book of King Arthur and of His Noble Knights
An exceptionally handsome copy of Malory’s great Arthurian classic, the 1912 Macmillan printing of Sir Edward Strachey’s edition of the Caxton text, transformed by a striking modern black morocco binding and housed in a fitted solander box.
Author: Sir Thomas Malory; edited, with an introduction, by Sir Edward Strachey, Bart.
Title: Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory’s Book of King Arthur and of His Noble Knights of the Round Table. The Text of Caxton.
Publisher: London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin’s Street, 1912.
Edition: 1912 reprint of Sir Edward Strachey’s edition. The edition statement records the first Globe 8vo edition of March 1868, followed by numerous reprints, including this 1912 printing.
Language: Text in English.
Pages: xvi, 509 pages, including glossary and index + publisher's advertisement.
Size: Book: 8 x 5.5 inches. Solander box: 9 x 7 inches.
Binding: Fine modern craft binding in full black morocco, with five raised bands to the spine, gilt lettering, tiny gilt diamond ornaments, and a stylized Middle English “A” tooled in gilt. The boards are dramatically decorated in blind, the upper with a large medieval-style “A” and the lower with an interlaced Celtic knot, while raised strap-like elements along the board edges evoke the construction of a medieval binding. Protected in a removable mylar cover. Textured endpapers and deckled edges. Housed in a fine custom black buckram solander box with rounded spine, gilt titles and a fitted felt-lined interior. A beautifully executed and highly individual binding.
Content: Very good. The text is complete, firm and generally clean, with some expected spotting and toning to the preliminaries and title page, as shown. A short closed tear is present at the lower edge of the half-title.
Estimate: USD $500–600.
The book: Le Morte Darthur is the foundational prose account of the Arthurian legend in English, bringing together the stories of King Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, Sir Tristram, Sir Gareth, the Knights of the Round Table and the quest for the Holy Grail into a single sweeping narrative. First printed by William Caxton in 1485, Malory’s work became the principal source through which generations of English readers encountered the Arthurian cycle.
This edition presents the Caxton text, edited by Sir Edward Strachey, whose influential nineteenth-century edition first appeared in 1868. The archaic character of Malory’s prose is retained while the extensive glossary and index make the work accessible to the modern reader. In this copy, the austere black morocco, medieval lettering, Celtic ornament and substantial solander box form a particularly sympathetic setting for one of the great works of medieval romance.
The author: Sir Thomas Malory was a fifteenth-century English writer best remembered as the author or compiler of Le Morte Darthur. Although aspects of his identity remain debated, he is generally associated with Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. His book drew upon French and English Arthurian romances to create a vast interconnected narrative of chivalry, loyalty, betrayal, love and the destruction of Arthur’s kingdom.
Completed during the later fifteenth century and printed by William Caxton in 1485, Le Morte Darthur profoundly shaped subsequent versions of the Arthurian legend. From Tennyson’s Idylls of the King to modern novels, films and fantasy literature, Malory’s vision of Camelot, the Round Table and its tragic fall remains one of the central sources of the Arthurian tradition.