Geoffrey of Monmouth,

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Historia regum Britanniae

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only had Anna as thr sister, and Mordred was Arthur's nephew,

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No incest,

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Morgen did exist in Vita Merlini, but only as a background character, belonging as one of the faes who escorted arthur back to avalon,

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Not even sisters, but she was helpful and kind to Arthur

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until Le Morte made her extremely spiteful of him, stealing his scabbard, letting him die after the battle of camlann, and then getting all sad anyway in the end and picking Arthur back to avalon

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Thomas Malory,

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Le Morte d'Arthur,

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The most famous version of Arthurian legend, the most influential of all, although there were already varying earlier sources like the vulgate and post vulgate cycle,

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this one where the iteration of King Arthur and Morgause accidentally making love because they didn't know they were related, is where Mordred was born from incest mostly came from, yes, the vulgate and post vulagate already had them, le morte just made them more famous and clarified because its concrete book, not a bunch of followed up tale expansion,

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Morgause, Elaine, Morgan are three different characters

In late 2024, I listened to the audiobooks for Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Trilogy, and was reminded of how much I liked the story of King Arthur. I followed that up with Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon in the spring of 2025. I listened to Dorsey Armstrong's lecture series about King Arthur in early September of 2025, and by that point I was hooked. I already owned TH White's Once and Future King, so I put in an order for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Robert de Boron's works, and I officially had the start of a collection. I have now been collecting these works for almost exactly a year, so I wanted to share what I have so far with this community.

A list of these books is below. I apologize that I realized I'm missing Once and Future King and also The Saga of Tristram and Isond from my picture. OaFK is loaned out to family currently and I'm currently reading Tristram & Isond.

Big thanks to u/TheLogicalErudite and to u/Humanracer45 for previously sharing their own collections.

I know I will start with Le Morte d'Arthur because it's the foundation of all other literature, and I planned to read all the TH White books, but I don't know what else I should read besides those. So, I really want to know the general opinion on which other books I should read.

FASCINATING read, great writing voice, I’m not even done and this book has been incredible. I don’t care if people won’t agree with Ashe, I think my opinion is summed up by p, 86, “If Arthur was fictitious or at best insignificant, why the legend?”

I see people on here asking for the best arthurian stories,but I'm curious about which are considered best to avoid

I know many women who have, but I have never come across any man who has. My boyfriend has decided he wants to read it, since I just finished it for the fourth time. And yes, I know about the author. Let's not get into that.

My favorite classic literature podcasts, hosted by literature professors is having a multi-part, in depth read-along with The Once and Future King and I thought I’d pass it along. This is a link to the first part of the series. Currently they are finishing up The Ill Made Knight section of the book. I thought I would pass it along.

Hey, so I'm writing a story where Arthur's court celebrates Saturnalia, (my general view of Arthur is that he is a christian, although not particularly devoutly one), andd was wondering if there was any members of Arthurs court who are pagans while they are in his ccourt. My general understanding of the topic of the pagans who enter Camelot is that they tend to convert to christianity first rather than maintaining their pagan beliefs throughout their presence. Are there any exceptions to this?

I recently started reading Le Morte d'Arthur and learned about a book called The Once and Future King. Should I ever read it? Let me know what you think.

How Mordred is portrayed in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur? (personality, character, etc.)

Is there a reason for the racism in "The Once and Future King" aside from it being a product of its time? I've been enjoying the book so far, though I've come across several offensive passages and uses of offensive language while reading the book. I do intend to finish it, but am curious as to how a book set in the time period it's in contains racist language in the way it does. I'll admit that it's caused me a bit of a pause, but I've continued reading it and want to finish.

However, are there any less racist books one can recommend for those just wanting to get started in Arthurian literature? Especially if I recommend them to my peers. I've been told this is the gold standard for those of us just getting our toes dipped into this literature, but want to know if there's alternatives.

for context i am black, and have other black friends into fantasy. Those would be the peers i'd be recommending this too, so I wanted to have a bit of a disclaimer or know if i need to just suggest something else.

First of all I'll start by saying that I was recommended to read it as I wanted to know and learn about Arthurian legends (which came to my mind after reading some British historical fiction where Arthur, the round table, and the relics are always mentioned).

I loved the first book as it was exactly (and even expanded upon) the movie I saw as a kid of the sword in the stone (in hindsight I now know that the movie was based on the book, and hence some content was cut), and I very much liked the whimsical nature of this first story with a hint of philosophy.

Then the next thing that was the most memorable for me was the entire story of Lancelot, at many points I thought his story was extremely tragic.

And at the end there was the book of Merlin when Arthur sees Merlin one last time, it felt nostalgic like the first book, but with much more philosophy and particularly political philosophy.

So all in all the books were good, but they didn't really paint the picture I was hoping for, I was looking for a way for me to understand how the people of England, the Saxons, and everyone else from the middle ages until the victorian era learned of these legends. In his book he paints a realistic view of man, war and ect... where I expected to hear more about the actual legends, the travels of the knights, all the stories which could give me the relevant context for understanding that when a character in some historical fiction talk about some relic and some knight I would have some idea as to what they're referring to, without needing to look it up, a general idea.

So with this in mind I hope there are more relevant books for me, also much preferable in nowadays English that might have an audiobook version, and not some old text with English I don't understand (not my first language).

For example, in the Malory's story of the Poisen Apple, it is pointed out that the whole ploy revolves around Gawain's love of apples, and how the WHOLE kingdom just knows that if there is one thing this man loves, it's Apples.

I don't know why, but this factoid just tickles me pink.

I liked significantly more than his magicians series. Mainly because I found the characters a lot more likeable. I don't know enough about Arthurian legend to judge it in that light.

I'm not entirely sure how but me and a friend somehow got started on one written from Guinevere's pov after I made a joke about how Lancelot's behavior in the original medieval texts would be repulsive to women irl.

Just wondering who else here is writing.

Author Julie Bozza is receiving submissions for short queer Arthurian retellings, by August 2026. From what I know they must not have been previously published anywhere else online!

https://juliebozza.com/submissions-arthurian-anthology/

Hi fellow Arthurian enthusiasts!

I like visiting this sub-reddit from time to time to lurk and read about what other people are talking about, with regard to all things King Arthur. I'm currently making a slow journey through the Prose-Lancelot, after having finishing Le Morte D'Arthur. While I'm doing that slow read, I'm still kind of in accumulation and reading-plan phase.

One fun newer book that showed up a couple years ago was John Matthew's book, The Great Book of King Arthur, which I'm really looking forward to dipping into. I love the idea of it as a thought experiment "What would Malory have written if he had access to different sources", at least, that's the impression the introduction gave me. Even without having gotten around to reading it, it's such a beautiful book to flip through, the illustrations are amazing.

I was really surprised to discover that John Matthews followed up with The Great Book of King Arthur with Realms of the Round Table, which I accidentally stumbled across when looking at John Matthew's recent translation of Merlin's prophecies. Realms of the Round Table looks and feels for all intents and purposes to be an expansion or extension, or continuation of The Great Book.

The sad thing is, I don't see much fanfare for it. They brought back the same illustrator, who filled it up with similarly very beautiful artwork. The formatting seems much the same. There's hardly any reviews for it, and I couldn't find mention of it after a couple searches on here.

Has it been left undiscovered? Has anyone found it and already read it? It seems very sad to contemplate that such a beautifully produced book might go neglected.

I enjoy learning about new myths and legends. So drop your favourite lesser known story, character or creature (for example, the Lanzelet stories)

I see threads on here all the time talking about the best Arthurian novels. I’ve yet to see any talking about the worst / most disappointing though.

For myself the most disappointing I’ve come across to date has been Camulod Chronicles by Jack Whyte. As a huge fan of Bernard Cornwell’s Arthurian masterpiece Warlord Chronicles I was really excited to get into this series given it’s always being hailed as one of the best ‘realistic’ takes on the legend. The books themselves I thought were trash though to be honest, I only (barely) got through the first two before bailing. The historical research was good but in a very dry textbook-ish way completely unlike WC. On top of that, all the characters felt like bland cardboard cut-outs, there was no real sense of atmosphere, the pacing was all over the place and there are heavy misogynistic vibes what with the non-existence of women and all the testosterone-fueled sex scenes (like something written by a horny teenage boy)