Sir Thomas Malory (about 1415–1471) was an English knight and the author of Le Morte d'Arthur, the great prose account of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, printed by William Caxton in 1485. He wrote it, he says, while a prisoner.
A knight in trouble
The author is generally identified with Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel, in Warwickshire, born around 1415, who served in the household of the Earl of Warwick and sat in Parliament in 1445.
From 1450 he was accused of a series of crimes, including robbery, cattle raiding and assault, and spent many years in prison, escaping twice. He was never tried for most of the charges, and the accusations may have been partly political, in the time of the Wars of the Roses.
The book
At the end of his work, Malory asks his readers to pray for his deliverance and says he finished it in the ninth year of Edward IV, that is 1469–1470. He probably wrote in prison, where he may have had access to a library.
He drew mainly on the French prose romances of the thirteenth century and on English poems, combining the stories of Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot, Tristram, the quest for the Holy Grail and the fall of the Round Table.
Caxton and after
William Caxton printed the book in 1485 under the title Le Morte d'Arthur, dividing it into twenty-one books. Malory had died in March 1471 and was buried at Greyfriars, near Newgate prison.
His version became the main source of the Arthurian legend in English, for Tennyson's Idylls of the King, T. H. White's The Once and Future King and countless films.
Anecdotes
The Winchester manuscript
In 1934 a manuscript of Malory's work, different from Caxton's edition, was discovered in the library of Winchester College. It showed that Caxton had shortened and reorganised the text.
A 'knight prisoner'
Malory calls himself a 'knight prisoner' in his book, which is how scholars connected the author with the troubled knight of Newbold Revel.
Frequently asked questions
What is Le Morte d'Arthur about?
The whole story of King Arthur, from his birth and the sword in the stone to the Round Table, the quest for the Grail, the love of Lancelot and Guinevere and Arthur's death.
Who printed Le Morte d'Arthur?
William Caxton, the first English printer, at Westminster in 1485.
Who was Thomas Malory?
Probably a knight of Warwickshire who spent many years in prison accused of crimes, and who wrote the book there around 1469–1470.