The Legend of the Grail: 58 (Arthurian Studies) - Hardcover

Part ripping yarn and part religious myth, re-told in a seemingly seamless narrative with verve and panache, true to its sources but eminently accessible to a modern audience. PENDRAGON
Fine, inspiring literature made wholly accessible. FORTEAN TIMES
Can be recommended to those who wish to acquaint themselves with one of the most enchanting medieval legends. INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF BIBLICAL STUDIES
[M]akes the Grail material accessible to students on several levels, from the undergraduate to the interested professional scholar outside of French medieval studies or Arthurian studies or medieval literature in general. MEDIEVAL REVIEW
An original compilation that ingeniously weaves together several diverse strands of the Grail legend. It is an intriguing, and occasionally surprising, refashioning of the tale and its redactions. It is...a delightful read. ARTHURIANA

The quest for the Holy Grail is one of the most important elements in the story of King Arthur. Yet even among the many interested in the stories of the Round Table, very few have read at first hand the medieval masterpieces which over a period of some forty years, in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, together became the foundation of the legend of the Grail.
These romances, full of bewildering contradictions and composed by a number of different writers with very different preoccupations, dazzle with the sheer wealth of their conflicting imaginative detail. In this new compilation, the enthralling material becomes truly accessible through his interweaving of the principal motifs and narrative strands of all the original Grail romances to construct a single, consistent version of the Grail story, while clearly tracing the development of its enigmatic and potent theme. All the mystery and drama of the Arthurian world are embodied in the extraordinary adventures of Perceval, Gawain, Lancelot and Galahad in their pursuit of the Grail. Told here as a unified, coherent narrative, the Grail legend reasserts its relevance as one of the great works of imaginative literature of the middle ages.
NIGEL BRYANT's previous Arthurian books include The High Book of the Grail (Perlesvaus), Chretien de Troyes' Perceval and its Continuations, and Robert de Boron's Merlin and the Grail.