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Malory: The Life and Times of King Arthur's Chronicler
 
 
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Malory: The Life and Times of King Arthur's Chronicler (Hardcover)

by Christina Hardyment (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £25.00
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 400 pages
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (15 Aug 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007114893
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007114894
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 4.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 863,682 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Peter Ackroyd, The Times

'enterprising [and] excellent'


Sunday Telegraph

'consistently fascinating reading...[the] fiercely imagined and passionately argued narrative is sustained by the directness and fluency of Hardyment's writing'
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Highly informative, 10 Feb 2006
By S. Fletcher (Manchester United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A heavy weight book that is hard to get into. The first part of the book looks in depth at Malory's possible ancestory and is heavy going often requiring frequent look backs to stay on track. However when it actually gets into his life it becomes a facinating and interesting book. Though much of it is conjecture in relation to Malory himself the insight into those times is facinating. Details on how the system worked, though admittedly only for the landed gentry, the law, political rivalries and alliances of those times made me hunger for more. By making it personal to Malory it removed the sterile boneless facts of many history books and made it an interesting and informative story of of the 1400s. Money well spent, defintely a book I shall return to many times.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Gripping in parts, heavy going in others. , 25 Mar 2008
By Harun Mushod (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Malory: The Life and Times of King Arthur's Chronicler (Paperback)
An interesting, if uneven, biography of Sir Thomas Malory, the most comprehensive medieval chronicler of King Arthur's legends. In fairness, the patchiness is not really Hardyment's fault. The problem is that that there are only scraps of information known about Malory. When this book deals with known facts about Malory or his family, it is an impressive and exciting piece of detective work. For example, the probable circumstances behind the allegations of assault, robbery, and - most controversially for a writer of chivalrous romances - the two rapes on the same woman that kept Malory in jail for a good part of the decade from 1450, are gripping. Hardyment looks at the bigger picture and convincingly concludes that he may have had reasons for the assaults and robberies. He was also probably framed for the rapes by his `victim's' husband and high ranking nobles in revenge for Malory's opposition as an MP to Henry VI's policies of appeasement towards the French. Even more fascinating is the speculation surrounding the explicit exceptions for Malory from three general pardons issued by Henry VI's usurper, Edward IV, during the course of the Wars of the Roses.

The problem arises in part when there are huge evidential gaps in Malory's life. Malory spent some time fighting in France for Henry V as a young man, but there is little evidence that he was involved in Agincourt (he probably wasn't) or during the imprisonment of Joan of Arc (Hardyment thinks he was involved and may even have been her gaoler). At these and other points the biography reverts to a pretty straight and heavy history of the latter stages of the 100 Years War and the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. Better is the speculation surrounding Malory's involvement with is uncle, Sir John Malory who was the English Prior of the Order of St John.

The whole thing convincingly paints Malory as a tough and loyal soldier and possibly a successful propagandist, who honed his writing skills by writing Arthurian romances whilst wiling away his time in jail.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A rich treasure., 20 Mar 2006
By M. Burgess "Mark Burgess" (South West England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a wonderful book. Written with passion and insight, Christina Hardyment draws a convincing portrait from the scant material that has survived for this enigmatic author and his turbulent times. It's a big book, which is only fitting for the biography of King Arthur's author, but Hardyment has a light touch and carries the reader along with her humour and good sense. There are also beautiful illustrations and the book is handsomely produced, making the whole experience enough to send anyone back to the Morte Darthur, or reaching for it for the first time. An excellent biography for this 'full noble knight'.
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