Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory

The next elegant edition in the Knickerbocker Classic series, Le Morte d'Arthur is unabridged and complete. Originally published in 1485 by William Caxton, Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur remains the most exciting and magical interpretation of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. For Arthurian fans worldwide, this stunning gift edition has a cloth binding, ribbon marker, and is packaged neatly in an elegant slipcase. Featuring a new introduction and the elegant illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), this volume of Le Morte d'Arthur is an indispensible classic for every home library.

This book contains 507 chapters. The writing style is a complete turn off (it was originally published in 1485), although I really like the Arthur mythos, and as far as I read, it seemed to be doing a good job telling it.

Some paraphrasing to give and idea:

Chapter 1: on how Arthur was born and Merlin contrived a situation to become his guardian
King Uther Pendragon wanted to bed his defiant baron's wife in order to teach him a lesson and because she was very beautiful. So he asked Merlin for his help. Merlin agreed to help him in exchange for his first born son. Uther agreed, bedded Igraine, and gave Arthur to Merlin. (1 page)

Chapter 2: on how Arthur became king and a curious sword on the stone
When Uther died, all the barons started fighting for the throne. Merlin have decreed that whoever was able to remove the sword from the stone would become King. Arthur managed to remove thew word and became King. (2 pages)

Chapter 3...

I give this a five out of ten with the MOST enthusiasm possible. At times I really enjoyed Le Morte d’Arthur, the whimsical, straight forward nature of the group of knights is endearing in all the best ways as they bumble around for hundreds of pages on end, but I couldn’t say I would recommend someone read it either.

First thing you’ll have to get used to is the way its written, it’s very “old time english” and at first is very difficult to get into. Once you do, I think the flow of it can be charming but it is a barrier to entry. Secondly at times it can drag A LOT. There is a whole midsection of the book (books 8-10) which are much longer then any other section and are also just filled with endless nothingness that made me put the whole book on hold for half a year.

There’s also what feels like a lot of repetition in events throughout, almost every book contains multiple joust tourneys where inevitably Lancelot will disguise himself as someone so he can fight against the round table.(happens so often, Gawaine calls it out in book 19). The most egregious moment is when Malory writes out the names of 86 knights back to back that show up to help someone. It goes on and on.

Probably best to stick to an abridged version. There's a lot to enjoy here to me but A LOT to sludge through as well