Good evening and welcome to the sleepy bookshelf.

This season we are reading King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable by Sir Thomas Mallory.

Sir Thomas Mallory is believed to have been the English writer of Le Mans d'Arthur, who was born around the

beginning of the 15th century.

The little that is known about him is hotly contested by scholars still.

There are accounts, deciphered from prayers in the Winchester manuscript, that lead us to believe that there was only one

Sir Thomas Mallory alive in England at the time, but this man was noted as being in and out

of prison and not the morally sound person he would seem to be from his story. There were other

Thomas Mallories, and while they were not knighted, they did come from

knightly families, and so some believe it could be one of them.

This means that the definite authorship of the book remains a mystery.

We know our listeners are as unique as our novels and lucky for you,

our bookshelf is varied with lots of different types of stories

to lull you into a deep sleep.

The following is no different.

It is believed that King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable was written

about 1470, and the version we will be reading here is the one edited by Rupert S. Holland, and published

in 1919. The original Le Maud d'Auteur, comprised of several tales about the legendary King Arthur,

Gwynnevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table.

The version we will be reading includes the famous Sword in the stone, the establishment of Camelot,

and the quest for the Holy Grail, all hugely well-known moments in literary history,

although perhaps not ones everyone has read first-hand. I can't wait to get started.

...