In 1934, these were the lines which made the Librarian of Winchester College realize that he had discovered a hitherto unknown version of Sir Thomas Malorys Le Morte dArthur, a work known to all previous readers only through Caxtons 1485 edition. For it was known that Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel had been imprisoned on numerous occasions between the 1450s and his death in 1471 -- by Lancastrians and Yorkists. But who was Malory? Why did successive authorities want to lock him up? How did he come to write the Morte dArthur? And why has that text been so persistent a presence in English culture? Going in quest of Malory and of the meaning of the Morte the author addresses the texts central preoccupations -- violence, desire, and the nature of Englishness. Malory is placed in his social context, at a time of unprecedented national and regional unrest. Lustig traces the connections between writers and commentators -- from Tennyson to T.S. Eliot who have been fascinated by Malorys work.
