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Medieval Literature in Manuscript and Print: Malory

Click on images to link to facsimiles.

Winchester Manuscript

British Library Additional Manuscript 59678, or the Winchester Manuscript, is fully digitized and is available through the British Library's website here. 

You may prefer to use the version on the Malory Project website where you can download images.

 

Caxton edition

Thus endeth thys noble and ioyous book entytled Le morte Darthur... Westminster: William Caxton, 1485. John Rylands Library Special Collections Incunable Collection 18930. This edition survives in only two copies. The imperfect copy held by the John Rylands Library has been fully digitized. Click on the image to enter the facsimile.

Facsimile of Caxton's Malory

The Pierpont Morgan Library houses the only complete copy. A printed facsimile published in 1976 by Scolar press is available in TCU Special Collections. 

Other Editions

Wynkyn de Worde printed a new illustrated edition in 1498. There are only two surviving copies.

Malory, Thomas. Thus endyth this noble & ioyous boke entytled Le morte Dathur... Westminster: Wynkyn de Worde, 1498. John Rylands Library Special Collections Spencer 15396

 

Link to digital facsimile of Wynkyn de Worde's edition of Malory

The Bodleian Library also houses a fragmentary copy which has been microfilmed. A digital facsimile of the microfilm is available through Early English Books Online. 

Link to the digitized version at the Bodleian.

 

De Worde printed another edition in 1529 of which a single copy survives at the British Library. It does not appear to have been digitized recently, but there is a digital version of a microfilmed version of their copy you can access through Early English Books Online.

Link to Early English Books Online

The next edition was published in London by William Copeland. There are seven surviving copies! You can see a digitized version of the copy at the Huntington Library by clicking the image below.

Image of William Copeland's edition and link to facsimile

TCU's Malory

The next edition was published in 1578. TCU, along with just eight other institutions, owns this copy!

Malory, Thomas. The Storye of the Most Noble and Worthly Kynge Arthur... London: Thomas East, 1585. Lewis PR2040 1585. 

The copy at the Huntington Library was microfilmed. You can access a digital version of the microfilm through Early English Books Online by clicking on the image below. 

Huntington copy of Thomas East's edition of Malory

Beardsley's Malory

Publisher J.M. Dent wanted to offer attractively printed books, such as those emerging from places such as the Kelmscott and Doves Press, at an affordable price by using inexpensive illustration techniques (photomechanical line-block and half-tone block) and bindings. The artist Aubrey Beardsley was only nineteen at the time a designed the illustrations and decorations. The success of the edition made his career.

It was issued in twelve installments, intended to be bound into two volumes. TCU's copy was never bound and it retains its original blue wrappers.

Image of 1893-4 edition of Malory with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley

For fun

Sabuda, Robert. Arthur and the Sword. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1995. Special Collections Varley PZ8.1.S2134 Art 1995