Le Morte d’Arthur

Sir Thomas Malory gathered the scattered French and English legends of King Arthur into a single sweeping prose narrative, composing much of it while imprisoned. The story carries Arthur from his mysterious conception and the drawing of the sword through the founding of the Round Table, the adulterous love of Lancelot and Guinevere, the quest for the Holy Grail, the tragedy of Tristan and Iseult, and the final ruin of the fellowship. William Caxton printed it in 1485, and its plain, stately English shaped nearly every later retelling of the Arthur story, from Tennyson to modern fantasy. For all its knightly ideals of honor and courtesy, it never looks away from betrayal and loss. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.