No details of his life are known. Probably born about 1430 in Wales. His “Le Morte Arthur” was printed by Caxton in 1485 (only two copies known); reprinted by Wynkyn de Worde in 1498 (only one copy known) and 1529 (only one copy known). A great many modern editions have been published in America and Great Britain.

  Here is the end of the booke of kyng Arthur and of his noble knyghtes of the Rounde Table, that whan they were hole togyders there was ever an C and xl. And here is the ende of the deth of Arthur. I praye you, all jentyl men and jentyl wymmen that redeth this book of Arthur and his knyghtes from the begynnyng to the endyng, praye for me whyle I am on lyve that God sende me good delyveraunce, and whan I am deed, I praye you all praye for my soule; for this book was ended the ix yere of the reynge of kyng Edward the Fourth by Syr Thomas Maleore, knyght, as Jhesu helpe hym for hys grete myght, as he is the servaunt of Jhesu bothe day and nyght.

  ¶Thus endeth thys noble and Ioyous book entytled le morte Darthur / Notwithstondyng it treateth of the byrth / lyf / and actes of the sayd kynge Arthur / of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table / theyr meruayllous enquestes and aduentures / thachyeuyng of the sangreal / & in thende the dolourous deth & departyng out of thys world of them al / Whiche book was reduced in to englysshe by syr Thomas Malory knyght as afore is sayd / and by me deuyded in to xxi bookes chapytred and enprynted / and fynysshed in thabbey westmestre the last day of Iuyl the yere of our Lord M/CCCC/lxxx/V/¶Caxton me fieri fecit.

  In our forefathers tyme, whan Papistrie, as a standyng poole, couered and ouerflowed all England, fewe bookes were read in our tong, sauyng certaine bookes Cheualrie, as they sayd, for pastime and pleasure, which, as some say, were made in Monasteries, by idle Monkes, or wanton Chanons: as one for example, Morte Arthure: the whole pleasure of which booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold bawdrye: In which booke those be counted the noblest Knightes that do kill most men without any quarrell, and commit fowlest aduoulter(i)es by sutlest shiftes: as Sir Launcelot with the wife of king Arthure his master: Syr Tristram with the wife of king Marke his vncle: Syr Lamerocke with the wife of king Lote, that was his owne aunte. This is good stuffe, for wise men to laugh at, or honest men to take pleasure at. Yet I know, when Gods Bible was banished the Court, and Morte Arthure receiued into the Princes chamber. What toyes, the dayly reading of such a booke, may worke in the will of a yong ientleman or a yong mayde, that liueth welthily and idelie, wise men can iudge, and honest men do pitie. And yet ten Morte Arthures do not the tenth part so much harme, as one of these books, made in Italie and translated in England.

  A Book that is, in our Days, often sold by the Ballad-singers with the like Authentick Records of Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Southampton.

  Indisputably the best Prose Romance the language can boast.

  It is as if the book were the production of no one mind, nor even of a score of successive minds, nor even of any one place or time, but were a rolling body of British-Norman legend, a representative bequest into the British air and the air overhanging the English Channel, from the collective brain and imagination that had tenanted that region through a definite range of vanished centuries.

  Hardly any book in our language deserves the epithet of dull so little as the work of Sir Thomas Malory.

  Sir Thomas Malory’s “Morte d’Arthur” is a condensation of an extensive literature—the prose romances on the subject of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Its humble prose is all that we have to show as a national epic. It is compiled and abridged from French prose romances written during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, and contains the most famous exploits fabled of our national heroes. Its chief pretense to unity is that it begins with the birth of Arthur and ends with his death. It is, further, consistent in recognising throughout the invincible superiority of Lancelot of the Lake. Otherwise, its variety is somewhat bewildering, in spite of the obliging printer’s division into twenty-one books. It is a book to choose when restricted to one book, and only one, as the companion of solitude; there might then be some hope of gaining a clear mastery over its intricacies, a vivid conception of each several adventure of Gawain and his brothers, of Pelinore, Lancelot, Pelleas, Tristram, Palamides, Lamorak, Percival, Galahad, and their interminable friends, foes, and fair ladies.

  In nothing has the revival of sound critical taste done better service than in recalling us to the Arthurian Cycle, the dayspring of our glorious literature. The closing books of Malory’s Arthur certainly rank, both in conception and in form, with the best poetry of Europe; in quiet pathos and reserved strength they hold their own with the epics of any age. Beside this simple, manly type of the mediæval hero the figures in the Idylls of the King look like the dainty Perseus of Canova placed beside the heroic Theseus of Pheidias.

  Nor must I omit to mention Sir T. Malory’s “Morte d’Arthur,” though I confess I do so mainly in deference to the judgment of others.

  I say in this new day of printing a certain Sir Thomas Mallory, who lived at the same time with Caxton, the first English printer, did, at the instance, I think, of that printer—put all these legends we speak of into rather stiff, homely English prose—copying, Caxton tells us, from a French original: but no such full French original has been found; and the presumption is that Mallory borrowed (as so many book-makers did and do) up and down, from a world of manuscripts. And he wrought so well that his work had great vogue, and has come to frequent issue in modern times, under the hands of such editors as Southey, Wright, Strachey and Lanier.

  The very soul of mediæval Christianity breathes out of the story of the Quest of the Graal as told with simple directness by Sir Thomas Malory. The great popularity of the romance of Tristram and King Mark’s wife, the fair Isolde, made it impossible that Malory should have thought of omitting that. But in some sense Tristram is to Isolde as Lancelot to Guinevere. The romance of Tristran was an early offshoot from the sequence planned by Walter Map, and a reader of Sir Thomas Malory’s “History of Arthur” might get a better impression of the sequence of adventures, as Map had arranged them, by omitting from the first reading those chapters which interweave the tale of Tristram and Isolde. They were inseparable from the Arthur Legend of Sir Thomas Malory’s time, but they break the harmony of the first arrangement by burdening one part of it with variations on its motive.

  The most remarkable prose romance that had yet been written in the English language…. Its appearance marks an epoch in the history of English romance literature.

  The “Morte d’Arthur”—by which title the work is generally known—can in no way divest itself of the character of being a compilation: repetitions, contradictions, and other irregularities are by no means of rare occurrence. At the same time, it is, upon the whole, arranged with a certain degree of skill, for in spite of the abundance of episode, Malory has succeeded in producing a kind of unity, and even though some monotony in the variety was unavoidable, still the plan and style of the narrative do not allow our interest to sleep, or, if asleep, it is aroused at definite points. Above all, the terse style of the narrative, in simple, but by no means colourless language, produces a good effect; and it was this alone which made it possible to compress the mass of material within a space readily surveyable.

  Speaking generally of the Arthur of Welsh literature, one may characterise him in few words:—His first appearance is found to conform itself with the rôle of a Comes Britanniæ, on whom it devolved to help the inhabitants of what was once Roman Britain against invasion and insult, whether at the hands of Angles and Saxons or of Picts and Scots: so we read of him acting for the kings of the Brythons as their dux bellorum. We next find his fame re-echoed by the topography of the country once under his protection, and his name gathering round it the legends of heroes and divinities of a past of indefinite extent. In other words, he and his men, especially Kei and Bedwyr, are represented undertaking perilous expeditions to realms of mythic obscurity, bringing home treasures, fighting with hags and witches, despatching giants, and destroying monsters. How greatly this rude delineation of the triumph of man over violence and brute force differs from the more finished picture of the Arthur of Malory’s painting, it would be needless to try to shew to anyone bent on the pleasure of perusing the Morte Darthur. Such a reader may be trusted to pursue the comparison unassisted, in the fascinating pages of this incomparable book.

  Malory’s prose, and not Chaucer’s, is the prose analogue of Chaucer’s poetry; summing up as it does some of the great attainments of the earlier Middle Ages, and presenting them in colours more brilliant, with a more conscious style, than they had possessed in their first rendering…. He is an author and an artist, and his style is his own.

  Above all, Malory’s language and style exactly suit his subject. In no work is there a perfecter harmony—a more sympathetic marriage—of this kind. This chronicler of knighthood is himself a knight. His heart is devoted to the chivalry he portrays, and his tongue is the faithful spokesmen of his heart.

  Malory’s style is characterised by the simplicity and perspicuity of his French originals, and although latinised words are not uncommon, and he connects his sentences with particles like “and,” “then,” and “so,” his best effects are produced by the use of monosyllables. No effort in English prose on so large a scale had been made before him, and he did much to encourage a fluent and pliant English prose style in the century that succeeded him. In the nineteenth century, interest in his work was revived after a long interval. Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King,” Mr. William Morris’s “Defence of Guinevere,” Mr. Swinburne’s “Tristram of Lyoness,” and Mr. Matthew Arnold’s “Death of Tristram,” were all suggested by Malory’s book.

  His simple forthright narrative is admirably lucid and effective, and makes amends for an inevitably rambling structure, while his flashes of chivalrous feeling illuminate the plains through which his story wanders. He is a master in the telling use of the Saxon speech, although he translates from the French.

  Whatever may have influenced Malory, he produced a book which cannot safely be neglected by the student of mediæval life and manners, to say nothing of the reader who is interested in the “Morte Darthur” on purely literary grounds. One can hardly understand the spirit of the Middle Ages without giving much attention to the romances, and one can find no romance in English to compare with the “Morte Darthur.” Even though the life there depicted is neither English nor French, and though the narrative has little or no basis in reality, the picture which the romance presents has just enough resemblance to the real society to be highly suggestive. Of course the picture needs interpretation and modification, yet it presents in a vivid light the ideals of what we somewhat vaguely call chivalry, and is steeped in the spirit of the great feudal society. This spirit it was, we may well believe, that made the book popular in its own time, and this will doubtless win for it favor in centuries to come.

  The French romance reciting the death of Arthur, together with the English poem already mentioned, came into the hands of Thomas Malory, and contributed to the narrative which in 1485 was printed under the title of Le Morte Darthur. In addition, Malory used the Queste, and romances relating to Merlin and Tristan, together with other prose compositions in which the poetic spirit of the cycle had been buried by rambling adventures. Out of such a conglomerate it was impossible to produce an interesting whole. The attraction of Malory’s work is chiefly owing to the language; only in the conclusion, where he borrowed from the English poem, has his account unquestioned merit. In spite of these inevitable difficulties, and of the consequent want of clearness and sequence, the history continues to be read and frequently printed; apart from the matter, the purity of style, as well as the enthusiasm of the compiler, will probably maintain its place as an English classic.

  The characters in Mallory’s recasting of the Arthurian legends are to some extent individualized, but they are romantic. They do not speak the natural language of men, nor are they concerned about the ordinary activities of life. The poem is far from being a transcript of life or even an interpretation of life, since the artificial motives of chivalry and mystical religion are predominant in the personages represented. They are not from life, but from a three-century dream of life, though the tragedy of Launcelot’s and Guinevere’s love is conceived truthfully and profoundly.