Le Morte D'arthur: Volume 1
This is where the legend begins. Before Tennyson, before T.H. White, before any modern retelling, there is Malory's magnificent tapestry of knights, betrayals, and the dream of Camelot. Written in a Newgate prison cell in the 1460s, this sprawling work collects and reshapes the scattered threads of Arthurian myth into something that would define the legend for centuries. Volume One opens with the story that started everything: the forbidden love of Uther Pendragon for Lady Igraine, the dark magic of Merlin, and the birth of a king conceived through deception. When Uther dies, the realm fractures. Only a boy raised in obscurity, drawing a sword from a stone none other could move, can restore unity. Thus Arthur rises, with Excalibur in hand and the Round Table's fellowship at his side. Here we witness tournaments, battles, the first stirrings of the Grail Quest, and the formation of the most noble order of knights the world has ever known. Yet even in these early pages, shadows gather. For Malory, chivalry was never simple. It was a code men aspired to and perpetually failed, a mirror holding up the brutal realities of medieval power and desire against the golden dream of what knights ought to be.
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“Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross.””
— Sir Thomas Malory
“In the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. ””
— Sir Thomas Malory
“For I have promised to do the battle to the uttermost, by faith of my body, while me lasteth the life, and therefore I had liefer to die with honour than to live with shame ; and if it were possible for me to die an hundred times, I had liefer to die oft than yield me to thee; for though I lack weapon, I shall lack no worship, and if thou slay me weaponless that shall be thy shame.””
— Sir Thomas Malory
“Better is peace than ever war.””
— Sir Thomas Malory
“O Merlin", said Arthur, "Here hadst thou been slain for all thy crafts had I not been." "Nay," said Merlin, "Not so, for I could save myself an I would; and thou art more near thy death than I am, for thou goest to the deathward, an God be not thy friend.””
— Sir Thomas Malory
“What... is the wind in that door?””
— Sir Thomas Malory
“Sir Tor dressed his shield, and took his spear in his hands, and the other came fiercely upon him, and smote both horse and man to the earth.””
— Sir Thomas Malory
“And when matins and the first mass was done, there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone four square, like unto a marble stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that said thus:”
— Sir Thomas Malory
“...and then the threw the sword as far into the water as he might; and there came an arm and a hand above the water and met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.””
— Sir Thomas Malory
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<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/le-morte-d-arthur-volume-1-dbd47d0d-f41d-4fd7-b187-0fd631899206"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read Le Morte D'arthur: Volume 1 by Sir Thomas Malory free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/le-morte-d-arthur-volume-1-dbd47d0d-f41d-4fd7-b187-0fd631899206)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/le-morte-d-arthur-volume-1-dbd47d0d-f41d-4fd7-b187-0fd631899206][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read Le Morte D'arthur: Volume 1 by Sir Thomas Malory free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/le-morte-d-arthur-volume-1-dbd47d0d-f41d-4fd7-b187-0fd631899206Cite this book
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Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte D'arthur: Volume 1. Lex, lex-books.com/book/le-morte-d-arthur-volume-1-dbd47d0d-f41d-4fd7-b187-0fd631899206.Malory, S. T. (n.d.). Le Morte D'arthur: Volume 1. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/le-morte-d-arthur-volume-1-dbd47d0d-f41d-4fd7-b187-0fd631899206Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte D'arthur: Volume 1. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/le-morte-d-arthur-volume-1-dbd47d0d-f41d-4fd7-b187-0fd631899206.











