like, the adjective "fair" going far to serve all
needs of description. But in his human characters, with their loves and
hates, jousts and battles, bewitchments and bewilderments, the author
takes deep interest, and follows the episodical stories which are woven
into the plot with a somewhat too satisfying fulness. In evidence of the
dramatic character of many of these episodes we need but refer to the
"Idyls of the King," whose various romantic and tragic narratives are
all derived from this quaint "old master" of fictitious literature.

With all its faults of style and method, the "Morte Darthur" is a very
live book. It never stops to moralize or philosophize, but keeps
strictly to its business of tale-telling, bringing up before the reader
a group of real men and women, not a series of lay-figures on a
background of romance, as in his originals.

Kay with his satirical tongue, Dinadan with his love of fun, Tristram
loving and noble, Lancelot bold and chivalrous, Gawaine treacherous and
implacable, Arthur kingly but adventurous, Mark cowardly and
base-hearted, Guenever jealous but queenly, Isolde tender and faithful,
and a host of other clearly individualized knights and ladies move in
rapid succession through the pages of the romance, giving it, with its
manners of a remote age, a vital interest that appeals to modern tastes.

In attempting to adapt this old masterpiece to the readers of our own
day, we have no purpose to seek to paraphrase or improve on Malory. To
remove the antique flavor would be to destroy the spirit of the work. We
shall leave it as we find it, other than to reduce its obsolete
phraseology and crudities of style to modern English, abridge the
narrative where it is wearisomely extended, omit repetitions and
uninteresting incidents, reduce its confusion of arrangement, attempt a
more artistic division into books and chapters, and by other arts of
editorial revision seek to make it easier reading, while preserving as
fully as possible those unique characteristics which have long made it
delightful to lovers of old literature.

The task here undertaken is no light one, nor is success in it assured.
Malory has an individuality of his own which gives a peculiar charm to
his work, and to retain this in a modernized version is the purpose with
which we set out and which we hope to accomplish. The world of to-day
is full of fiction, endless transcripts of modern life served up in a
great variety of