Merlin and the Grail
Robert de Boron
Boydell & Brewer Group Ltd
<span>It is hard to overstate the importance of this trilogy of prose  romances in the development of the legend of the Holy Grail and in the  evolution of Arthurian literature as a whole. They give a crucial new  impetus to the story of the Grail by establishing a provenance for the  sacred vessel - and for the Round Table itself - in the Biblical past;  and through the controlling figure of Merlin they link the story of  Joseph of Arimathea with the mythical British history of Vortigern and  Utherpendragon, the birth of Arthur, and the sword in the stone, and  then with the knightly adventures of Perceval's Grail quest and the  betrayal and death of Arthur, creating the very first Arthurian cycle.  Ambitious, original and complete in its conception, this trilogy -  translated here for the first time - is a finely paced, vigorous piece  of storytelling that provides an outstanding example of the essentially  oral nature of early prose. NIGEL BRYANT is head of drama at Marlborough  College. He has also provided editions in English of the anonymous  thirteenth-century romance Perlesvaus, published as The High Book of the  Grail, and Chretien's Perceval: The Story of the Grail.</span>