Biography Essay

The central issue of Malory scholarship and, therefore, of critical interpretation is whether the body of his work is a "hoole booke" or a collection of diverse tales centering in the Arthurian court. From the publication of William Caxton's edition in 1485 until this century, it was assumed that the body of work was a whole book that should be given the name of the last tale, "Le Morte Darthur." It was not until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript of Malory by W. F. Oakeshott in 1934 that the unity of the work was seriously questioned. The manuscript, which predates Caxton, seems closer to Malory's original than does Caxton's printed text, based on another manuscript that is no longer extant. The Winchester Manuscript is a handwritten transcription, while the Caxton text, with a fulsome, rather moralistic preface, seems much more the edition of England's first printer. A...