Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur Printed by Caxton
Poet involved
What happened
William Caxton printed Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur in 1485, making it one of the first major works of English prose to be set in type and giving the Arthurian legend its definitive English form. Malory's compilation — written while he was in prison — drew on French prose romances to create a vast narrative of knights, castles, quests, and the eventual ruin of Camelot. The book was read continuously from its first printing and remained the standard Arthurian source for English writers for centuries.
Literary impact
Le Morte d'Arthur provided every subsequent English poet who worked with Arthurian material — Spenser, Milton, Tennyson, Morris, T. H. White, and many more — with their primary narrative and architectural source. The castles of Camelot, Joyous Gard, and the Grail Castle were fixed in English literary memory through Malory's pages. Caxton's printed edition meant that these images of castle and chivalry were available to the new reading public created by the printing press, transforming their cultural reach.
Source: Wikipedia
