[RUSTICHELLO DA PISA].

£12,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

.Splendid copy of the scarce and rarely complete second edition, in luxury folio format, of this influential French chivalric romance formerly in the fine libraries of the Duke of Roxburghe and Charles Fairfax Murray. The roman of the knight-errand Meliadus, Tristan s father, originates in the Arthurian prose Tristan . Written by H élie de Borron c.1235-40 as an answer to the Lancelot-Graal romances, it became a milestone of the genre. It covers the period between Meliadus s son Tristan s birth and his remarriage to King Hoel s daughter. Denis Janot specialised in printing romance and fiction, often in expensively produced editions. This level of investment suggests a strong confidence in the market for romance (Rawles, 2018, p.43). . . ..The text is based on the French translation and adaptation of the influential Arthurian compilation of Rustichello da Pisa (fl.C13) who assisted Marco Polo in writing his travelogue made at the request of Edward I of England. The name of the French translator remains unknown (cf. Rawles, 2018, n.17). The printed Meliadus is set, fictionally, at the very end of the reign of Uther Pendragon, and it provides an immediate prehistory of the world of Arthur and of the prose Tristan , Lancelot s father, Gauvain s father, Lac father of Erec, and King Pharamond of Gaul . It is also the retroactive continuation of the roman Guiron le Courtois , printed c.1501, the narrative of which overlaps with the second part of Meliadus (Taylor, p.92). The sundry

• Binding: Hardcover

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