The Lancelot-Grail Reader: Selections from the Medieval French Arthurian Cycle

This is hard to rate as a work of fiction, but possibly the greatest tale ever told and an essential element in understanding the evolution of the Arthurian mythos.

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.

It should be POETRY, not prose translation. Grrr.