The History of the Kings of Britain: An edition and translation of the De gestis Britonum [Historia Regum Britanniae] (Arthurian Studies)

by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Michael D. Reeve, and Neil Wright

Michael D. Reeve (Editor) and Neil Wright (Translator)

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Book cover for The History of the Kings of Britain

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Written in the 1130s, Geoffrey's imaginative history of the Britons from Brutus to Cadwallader, the first work to recount the woes of Lear and the glittering career of Arthur, rapidly became a bestseller in the British Isles and Francophone Europe, with over 200 manuscripts surviving. Yet no critical edition of the main version has appeared since 1929.

This new text, for which 14 manuscripts have been collated in full, rests on a survey of the entire tradition; it is accompanied by a facing English translation, prepared especially for this volume. A comprehensive introduction discusses the status of variant versions, the shape of the main tradition, and many questions of editorial principle; critical notes analyse some problems raised by the transmitted text; and there is a full index of names.

MICHAEL REEVE is Kennedy Professor of Latin Emeritus at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; Dr NEIL WRIGHT is a Senior Language Teaching Officer at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.
  • ISBN10 1843832062
  • ISBN13 9781843832065
  • Publish Date 15 November 2007 (first published 1 January 2007)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
  • Imprint The Boydell Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 388
  • Language English