The Lancelot-Grail Reader: Selections from the Medieval French Arthurian Cycle (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities) [Paperback]

Norris J. Lacy (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0815334192 | ISBN-13: 978-0815334194 | Publication Date: January 1, 2000

The Lancelot-Grail Reader is a single volume condensation of the complete five volume translation of the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles of Arthurian romance.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The efforts of Norris J. Lacy and his associates have made this important work available to a wider audience in a form which is both readable and reliable.
–Arthuriana

This English translation is beautifully done...will delight readers from the first paragraph to the last.
–Library Journal

Norris Lacy and his team of translators have done an immense service to scholars, providing a translation that does a fine job in treading the fine line between readability and intelligibility on the one hand and accuracy and fidelity to the original language on the other. They are to be thanked and commended.
–The Medieval Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 430 pages
• Publisher: Garland Publishing, Inc. (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815334192
• ISBN-13: 978-0815334194
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #721,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Whole Story (Abridged), September 22, 2008

By 

Jim Allan (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lancelot-Grail Reader: Selections from the Medieval French Arthurian Cycle (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities) (Paperback)

As a child, I grew to love Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. But I also fond it frustrating. Why was the end of the story of Tristan and Palamedes missing? Why did the Roman War not seem to have existed after that book? What was the questing beast? Why were there two differing accounts of how the Fisher King was maimed?

I read comments, but the commentators seemed, to me, to be amazingly uninterested in such questions. They would explain that Malory alone had first made one book out of the many Arthurian books, but I sometimes wondered if they had even read this one book.

Of course, eventually I discovered the old French romances in the University Library, and taught myself to read Old French to some degree. And, I discovered why Malory was so good, but also discovered all the missing parts which Malory didn't put into his tale. I found out who Galahaut the High Prince was, discovered the story of Guinglain son of Gawain, and read the account in the Prose Tristan about Tristan and the Land of Servage, which was so much superior to Malory's poor efforts.

Best of all, was Oskar Sommer's Vulgate Arthurian Cycle, in 8 enormous bound volumes as thick as phone books, providing secret lore concerning Lancelot and his kin.

Then in 1196 the final volume of Norris J. Lacy's Lancelot-Graal appeared, the conclusion of a translation into modern English of seven of Sommer's eight volumes, plus a translation of the remnant of the Post-Vulgate, a modified cycle which now existed only in fragments, but which told such major Athurian events as the death of King Lot, the death of the Queen of Orkney, and the death of King Pellinore, the Christening of Sir Palamedes, and the final end of the Questing Beast.

Unfortunately this immense series of books was out of print for years, not because of demand, which if anything has increased, but because of unaccountable lack of interest by the publisher in either putting out another printing of the books themselves or assigning rights to an eager paperback company.

However, a selection of material from the Lacy Lancelot-Grail volumes is still in print, in The Lancelot-Grail reader. The selections are knitted together by short summaries of the missing parts, and there is more missed than presented.

That creates a delightful tension. One knows one is missing material. Most of the material dropped makes sense, though I do wish Lacy had kept the account of Mordred for the first time learning who is true father is. But this is very much a "good parts" book, as William Goldman described his Princess Bride. If you want to get the gist of most of the full Lancelot version of the Arthurian legend, and read the best of it, then this is the book.

The book ends with an appendix of some Post-Vulgate material, exactly that material which in my opinion is most important in the Post-Vulgate.