Thomas Malory

(c. 1416 - c. 1471)

Thomas Malory was the author of Le Morte Darthur, the first prose account in English of the life of the legendary King Arthur. Among the early written sources for Arthurian legends were Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fictional History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1138), Chrétien de Troyes’ five romances (c. 1175), and the Vulgate cycle (c. 1225). Little is known about Malory, although the colophon to the manuscript states that he was a knight, that the work was finished in the ninth year of the reign of Edward IV, and that he prayed for “good delyueraunce” from prison.