Your Daily Penguin: Le Morte d'Arthur!

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[@marcusmusings]

Yes please, with an Arthurian starter kit. I have a beautiful hardcover illustrated version of the Malory

[@pattube]

1. Yes please on the Arthurian starter kit! I love TH White's The Once and Future King too! And I think The Book of Merlin should be printed as the final part of The Once and Future King since it's just as good and it follows directly on from the others. It's almost inexplicable to me why publishers print it separately, though I have my guesses. 2. I wonder if one reason Penguin doesn't print a single volume Le Morte D'Arthur is because of the evergreen fact of filthy lucre aka money? It's not a charge I'd usually make but after all other possibilities are exhausted, what else is left? That is, perhaps it makes Penguin more money to print the book in two volumes rather than one, and perhaps (since Penguin Random House own both Penguin and Modern Library as well as Everyman's Library and others), then they don't have a problem with people purchasing the nicer and more expensive Modern Library hardback edition, if people really want a single volume Malory. Again, I'm just speculating, but only because I don't have other options to explore.

[@patrickworthington3762]

Steve, would you really consider doing an in depth Arthurian starter kit? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love that!

[@monkeys7187]

I think they made it two volumes to make it easier to carry around. From a guy who reads at work I appreciate pocket sized or even paperback books.

[@jade7398]

I would love to see an Arthurian starter kit. I read Thomas Mallory and T H White and the Mists of Avalon. It would be great to know what else is out there.

[@tedcharter4804]

Great book. My first complete read though was the Oxford press edition. Loved the end notes in that edition as well.

[@gaildoughty6799]

Such a busy girl. My goodness, restive is the word. These volumes are hiding around here somewhere...I was amazed the first time I read it. Time for a leisurely re-read. Books will come in from Amazon in about two weeks, longer in some cases. Better World Books does much better in terms of speed, with a bonus of their whole charitable apparatus. Oh! I have Once and Future King on my bedside bookshelf. Fell in love with it many, many years ago and love it today.

[@thecaffeinatedbookwyrm3051]

I am reading this for my Arthurian Legends class at OSU. We also read Chretien de Troyes, Marie de France, and Geoffrey of Monmouth. I got the Le Morte d’Arthur in leather bound gold edged. This is so difficult to get through lol. I am going to have to go back and re-read all of them because when I read Legendborn, I want to know where what is coming from which. Lol

[@katynoral2432]

I can tell you that Book Outlet is still delivering. I received a package from them just last Thursday, ten days after I placed the order.

[@MarcelReads]

Love the puppy always and forever making her bed. 😂

[@ramblingraconteur1616]

I feel like the Penguin Classics editions are in “revised” English, with modern spelling and grammar. Is that accurate? Does the Modern Library edition do that too? After listening to your Western Canon Starter Kit last year, the reason I discovered BookTube, I found an amazing massive red volume by Oxford that has the original spelling. It’s coming off the shelf very soon! I loved the passages and abridged versions I read as a child. Finally, do you think the contemporaneous Wars of the Roses has much of an influence on Malory?

[@saintdonoghue]

Well, in my recollection neither edition is quite so modernized that it won't give newcomers the thrill of the strange!

[@battybibliophile-Clare]

I love Morte d'Arthur, and fee, another read coming on. Each time I read it, I enjoy it more. Penguin are sometimes unfathomable. I have the Folio Society edition and the Penguins, but my ancient eyes don't like the small print.Modern Library and Everyman editions are great too.

[@b.w.2849]

❤️

[@Leebearify]

As you speaking of T.H. Whites book Once and Future King ?

[@updown.7180]

Such a great book, I love it! I have the Norton Critical edition which I really like and a big illustrated hardcover as well.

[@elenamakridina8196]

Take us with you. Make a read-along out of Le Morte d'Arthur. I believe it's on Gutenberg Project.

[@davidmurphy5142]

Not really comparable, but Penguin publishes The Wealth of Nations in more than one volume as well, but then has the huge first volume of Capital as one. So I don't really understand what's going on there either.

[@ramblingraconteur1616]

David Murphy Isn’t it because in a mercantile system, the additional good in the form of a second volume is aligned to Smith’s thinking? Marx would be loathe to have that happen with his writing, right? Kidding on both counts, of course, but . . .

[@davidmurphy5142]

Rambling Raconteur ouch!!

[@jenniparks8539]

Quarantine has driven her nuts 😂

[@Starscreamlive]

I agree about the Modern Library cover. It's so bland. I might have to follow your lead and make my on cover as well.

[@saintdonoghue]

If I have a book that's exactly the edition I want & that I know for certain I'll never be re-selling or giving away, I'll often "personalize" the book if it doesn't look quite the way I want! Sacrilegious for book collectors, I know, but it works for me!

[@JorisL]

Hello Steve - I think you mentioned in one of your videos you’d be covering Boethius. He’s about a thousand years removed from where you are now so I’m slowly losing hope. You and lady philosophy seem to be on bad terms but his influence on dante and Chaucer hopefully gives him some literary cred (and a place in your book tour)!

[@tripp8833]

he's not going in chronological order, so we have no idea if Boethius will come tomorrow, or in five months. Yesterday he did the Epic of Giglamesh which is over 4000 years old.

[@saintdonoghue]

Good Lord, what about Boethius? Now that you mention him, I'm wondering where he is! I know I have the Penguin edition somewhere, but you're right - even in a loose system, we should have encountered him by now. I'm trying not to do a whole lot of looking around/ahead in this series (I'm worried that if I do, the old TEACHER in me will take control, and who needs that?), but now I'm tempted to do a search ... don't lose hope!