Sixth edition. Three volumes, small quarto (180x134mm). Bound in late eighteenth century black straight grained morocco with wide ruled borders to covers incorporating scrolls, corner pieces and decoration stamped in gilt and blind with Masterman Sykes's monogram and armorial crest in gilt in the centre. All edges gilt. Final blanks present in vols. I & III as called for. Wood engraved frontispiece to each volume, depicting "King Arthur and his Valiant Knights of the Round Table". Text printed in black letter type with Roman type for page and chapter headings, prelims and proper nouns. Superficial repairs to the joints of vols. I & II, but a very handsome set, appropriately bound. Internally excellent with some browning to the text block but without any repair or meaningful defect, just small rust holes to P4 and U1 in vol.I and catchwords on preliminary pages, ¶2r and ¶4r in vol.II shaved. An exceptionally well preserved copy.

Sir Thomas Malory's retelling of the Arthurian legends was compiled from his translation of thirteenth century French texts which he combined with a number of Middle English sources. The disparate nature of the sources and the way they were interwoven was such, that whilst the tales where not of Malory's invention, the resulting text was essentially an original work and has served as the principal vessel of Arthurian legend since its original publication by William Caxton in 1485. The colloquial title of "Le Morte Darthur" derives from Caxton's mistaking the title of the final section for that of the whole work. The work proved popular and was soon reprinted by Caxton's successor, Wynkyn de Worde in 1498 and 1529 and then by William Copland (1557) and Thomas East (1585) before the this edition of 1634 which serves as the last of the sequence before the English Civil War. No further edition of the work was published until 1816. The first five editions exist mainly in institutional holdings. Only one complete copy of the fifth edition has been seen at auction in the last forty years (in 1990), making this sixth edition the earliest practically obtainable edition and itself rare in complete and good order.

PROVENANCE: Sir Mark Masterman Sykes (1771-1823; famous bibliophile and book collector, who built "one of the finest libraries in England", including a Guttenburg Bible (then one only 18 known copies); sold at auction in 1824. Thomas Marston (1904-84; book and manuscript collector and Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Yale University, bookplate in each volume). H.Bradley Martin (1906-1988, noted book collector, bookplate to volume I, his sale in 1990).

Stock ID: 33433