Content Overlap in Myths & Legends Titles

Any opinions on the overlaps between Legends of King Arthur, Legends of the Grail, and British Myths & Legends?
Are the Perceval & Galahad extracts identical or different pieces/translations?

Good questions. I cover Legends of The Grail here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/155024#4199320

In summary it has 5 main chapters covering Joseph of Arimathea, Perceval, Perlesvaus, Parzival and Galahad. With the exception of Galahad, which has been modernised from Sir Thomas Malory's text, the translations have been printed with a minimum of alteration. Perceval is translated from Chretien de Troyes, Perlesvaus is 13th century anon, Joseph of Arimathea attributed to Robert de Boron, and Parzival from Wolfram von Eschenbach.

There is quite a bit of overlap with Legends of King Arthur (and with the same translations too by Nigel Bryant). The Perceval extract starts at the same place, but is much longer in The Legends of King Arthur. There is however very little, if any, overlap with British Myths and Legends.

I am currently interested in Arthurian legend and I unashamedly admit that my knowledge is pitifully rudimentary. I posted here http://www.librarything.com/topic/167591
earlier but am unsure as to the activity on that group so any help you might give would be appreciated.

You could try the "Age of Chivalry" section of Bulfinch's Mythology. Also T. H. White's The Once and Future King and John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights, though these are both retellings of Malory.

Thanks

Hi all, I'm hesitating as to which of Folio's Legends of King Arthur and Legends of the Grail to hunt down for my Myths and Legends set. I don't want to get both because of the apparently substantial overlap and my creaking bookshelves. Can anyone who has either or both please advise? Legends of the Grail appears the more expensive of the two on the secondary market, but then was produced more recently. I prefer the look of Simon Brett's engravings (LotG) to Roman Pisarev's illustrations (LoKA), but I gather that Legends of King Arthur contains more text. Thanks!

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Hi, I've got both books but I haven't read Legends of King Arthur yet. Looking at the copyright and contents pages, it looks to be made up of extracts from quite old translations (a lot of Penguin Classics, one translation by Hilaire Belloc) to create a continuous narrative. The Grail book presents five versions of the Grail story in (I think) chronological order of composition...it looks, by a nose, to be the more scholarly volume even though it edits out parts of the original works that don't focus on the Grail story.

they are both nice volumes from the series but if you are after anything remotely 'scholarly' then these aren't the books - as with almost all FS it is the aesthetic pleasure

>6 cronshaw: The LoKA has two chapters on King Arthur, and two on Tristan, that are not in LotG. Both have chapters on Perceval and Galahad. In fact, the latter has three different chapters on Perceval. In LoKA, the third section, is titled "The Holy Grail". The LoKA has 700 pages, and the LotG 500.

So, if you can only get one, I would recommend you get the LoKA. It doesn't seem 200 pages bigger than the other. You could check out my picture of the whole set of Myths and Legends at http://www.librarything.com/topic/186240
to verify that assertion. The two books in question are right next to each other.

7-9 Many thanks to you all, that's helpful. LoKA then appears to be longer and broader in subject range, perhaps rather less scholarly, with Grail legends comprising only one third of its length. I agree with devilish Leopold that with Folio it largely comes down to aesthetic pleasure, so I may opt for LotG at this point simply because I'm fond of Brett's engravings.