See also Caxton, William
Further Reading
Primary Sources
Brewer, Derek Stanley, ed. The Morte Darthur, Parts Seven and
Eight. London: Arnold, 1968 [modernized text].
Cowen, Janet, ed. Le Morte D’Arthur. 2 vols. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1969 [Caxton’s edition in modernized spelling].
Le Morte D’Arthur Printed by William Caxton 1485. London:
Scolar, 1976 [facsimile].
Spisak, James W., ed. Caxton’s Malory. 2 vols. Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1983.
Vinaver, Eugène, ed. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. 3d ed.
Rev. P.J.C. Field. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.
The Winchester Malory. EETS s.s. 4. London: Oxford University
Press, 1976 [facsimile].
Secondary Sources
New CBEL 1:674–78.
Manual 3:757–71, 909–24.
Archibald, Elizabeth, and A.S.G. Edwards, eds. A Companion to
Malory. Cambridge: Brewer, 1996.
Bennett, J.A.W., ed. Essays on Malory. Oxford: Clarendon,
1963.
Benson, Larry D. Malory’s Morte Darthur. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1976.
Brewer, Derek Stanley. Symbolic Stories: Traditional Narra-
tives of the Family Drama in English Literature. Cambridge:
Brewer, 1980 [on the story of Sir Gareth].
Field, P.J.C. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory. Cam-
bridge: Brewer, 1993.
Gaines, Barry. Sir Thomas Malory: An Anecdotal Bibliography
of Editions 1485–1985. New York: AMS, 1990.
Ihle, Sandra Ness. Malory’s Grail Quest: Invention and Adap-
tation in Medieval Prose Romance. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1983.
Kato, Tomomi, ed. A Concordance to the Works of Sir Thomas
Malory. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1974.
Kennedy, Beverly. Knighthood in the Morte Darthur. Cambridge:
Brewer, 1985.
Knight, Stephen. Arthurian Literature and Society. London:
Macmillan, 1983.
Lambert, Mark. Malory: Style and Vision in Le Morte Darthur.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.
Life, Page West. Sir Thomas Malory and the Morte Darthur: A
Survey of Scholarship and Annotated Bibliography. Charlot-
tesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980.
McCarthy, Terence. An Introduction to Malory. Cambridge:
Brewer, 1993.
Parins, Marylyn Jackson, ed. Malory: The Critical Heritage.
London: Routledge, 1988.
Riddy, Felicity. Sir Thomas Malory. Leiden: Brill, 1987.
Sandved, Arthur O. Studies in the Language of Caxton’s Malory
and That of the Winchester Manuscript. Oslo: Norwegian
Universities Press, 1968.
Spisak, James W., ed. Studies in Malory. Kalamazoo: Medieval
Institute, 1985.
Takamiya, Toshiyuki, and Derek S. Brewer, eds. Aspects of
Malory. Cambridge: Brewer, 1981. Repr. with updated bib-
liography, 1986.
Whitaker, Muriel. Arthur’s Kingdom of Adventure: The World of
Malory’s Morte Darthur. Cambridge: Brewer, 1984.
Derek S. Brewer
MANDEVILLE, JEAN DE
(d. 1372)
Composed at Liège ca. 1357 by an otherwise uniden-
tifi able English knight-voyager, Mandeville’s Voyages
d’outre-mer was the most popular secular book of its
day, surviving in over 250 manuscripts and some ninety
incunabula, including translations into Latin, English,
Danish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Czech, and
Irish. Of the three distinct versions, the earliest was
certainly composed in French on the Continent. An
“insular” version, done ca. 1390 in England, is a Middle
English classic, whose anonymous author is sometimes
considered the “father” of English prose. The Voyages
popularized the newly discovered wonders of the East,
including much fabulous material, and gives a lengthy
description of the Holy Land. Mandeville compiled the
work at third hand from French translations by Jean Le
Long of Saint-Omer (d. 1383) of genuine Latin travel
accounts from the early 14th century. Le Long’s trans-
lations of fi ve Latin travel accounts are found together
in several manuscripts, of which the best known is the
Livre des merveilles (B.N. fr. 2810), copied ca. 1400 for
the duke of Burgundy. Mandeville also drew liberally
from Vincent de Beauvais’s Speculum naturale, Marco
Polo’s Devisement du monde, Gossuin de Metz’s Image
du monde, and Brunetto Latini.
Though fi lled with fabulous accounts, the Voyages
relates in a simple and unselfconscious prose the sum
of medieval knowledge of the world. It explains, for
example, why the world is round and incorporates many
other accurate observations. Through the centuries, it
has been alternately praised for its style and richness
and damned for absurdities and plagiarism. The author
has on occasion been confused with a Liège physician,
Jean de Bourgogne, and with the writer and notary Jean
d’Outremeuse. Mandeville is also credited with a French
prose lapidary found in 15th-century manuscripts and
early printed editions.
See also Brunetto Latini; Polo, Marco; Vincent de
BeauvaisFurther Reading
Mandeville, Jean de. Mandeville’s Travels, Texts and Transla-
tions, ed. M. Letts. London: Hakluyt Society, 1953. [Edition
of B.N. fr. 4515 and the English “Egerton” translation.]
——. Mandeville’s Travels, ed. Michael C. Seymour. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1967. [Edition of the English “Cotton” transla-
tion.]
——. The Metrical Version of Mandeville’s Travels, ed. Michael
C. Seymour. London: Early English Text Society, 1973.
——. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, trans. C.W.R.D.
Moseley. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983. [Modern English
translation.]
De Poerck, Guy. “La tradition manuscrite des Voyages de Jean de
Mandeville.” Romanica gandensia 4 (1955): 125–58.MANDEVILLE, JEAN DE