Reviewed by: Medieval Women on Film: Essays on Gender, Cinema and History ed. by Kevin J. Harty Susan Aronstein kevin j. harty, ed., Medieval Women on Film: Essays on Gender, Cinema and History. North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2020. Pp. 208. isbn: 978–1–4766–6844–4. $39.95. Beginning with the publication of Cinema Arthuriana: Essays on Arthurian Film in 1991, Kevin J. Harty’s work on the ‘reel’ Middle Ages has been invaluable for the study of medieval cinema, and Medieval Women on Film is a welcome contribution to this work. Chronicling the cinematic fortunes of medieval women, fictional and historical, the volume’s essays offer an insightful cross-disciplinary exploration of ‘the multiplicity of contradictory roles’ medieval women have played on film for over a century—‘as role models, as saviors, as saints, as sinners, as viragos, as victims, and as victimizers’ (p. 3). Amy Kaufman’s analysis of Hollywood’s Guinevere in the context of ‘evolving anxieties about women and sex in each cinematic generation’ places film Guineveres, from Vanessa Redgrave (1967) to Keira Knightley (2004), in the ‘feminist discourse of [their] time’ (p. 19). In the end, Kaufman concludes, filmmakers’ ‘troubling answer’ to ‘handling’ Guinevere ‘may be the one provided by . . . King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, which has no Guinevere at all’ (p. 30). Usha Vishnuvajjala’s exploration of Morgan le Fay on film demonstrates that cultural discourses about women have also determined Morgan’s characterization, as films from the 2000s displace ‘contemporary [End Page 73] misogyny onto the past,’ resignifying the complex and sympathetic Morgan of the 1980s (p. 48). Valerie Johnson’s study of Maid Marian provides yet another example of the disturbing modern misogyny that persists in films set in the Middle Ages; her examination of Robin Hood films from the 1920s to the 2000s finds that ‘neomedieval archetypes [always] dictate Marian’s behavior, her story potential, her narrative role, and ultimately her value’ (p. 69). Of all the fictional screen women studied here, only Isolde, as Joan Tasker Grimbert argues, seems to escape this fate. Grimbert, however, gives medieval sources and not ‘modern feminism’ (or filmmakers) the credit for ‘Isolde’s cinematic characterization’ (p. 64). Turning to historical women, Sandra Gorgievski explores Lady Godiva’s film career, arguing that Godiva’s inconsistent cinematic characterization—‘dutiful wife, feminist activist, and sex symbol’—stems from ‘the audience’s expectation of a film’s genre . . . [and] the version of the legend [they are] familiar with’(p. 144). Fiona Tolhurst shows that narrative expectations also limit Eleanor of Aquitaine, as films never allow her to become the female hero proposed by 20th-century feminism’s Golden Myth of Eleanor. Instead, from Beckett to Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, filmmakers reframe her, using the medieval Black Legend to discredit Eleanor in various ways—as an adulteress, a bad mother, a catty wife, a jealous murderess, a traitor, a rebel. Among the historical women discussed in the collection, only Joan of Arc, as Kevin J. Harty demonstrates, has been allowed a heroic portrayal on film; however, she, too, has been subjected to the visions and agendas of filmmakers who have ‘wrestled with Joan the simple peasant girl, Joan the androgyne, Joan the woman, Joan the doubting sinner, Joan the standard-bearer of a nation, and Joan the self-assured saint’ (p. 196). In addition to these analyses of medieval women’s cinematic histories, the volume offers four in-depth studies of individual films. Donald L. Hoffman examines Fritz Lang’s The Nibelungen, arguing that Lang’s legendary queens ‘despite being part of an exciting new medium . . . are creatures of an old worldview’ who precipitate Germany’s fall from myth into history (p. 94). Andrew B.R. Elliott, reading La Passion de Beatrice as both a Tavernier film and a product of French cinema in the 1980s and 90s, finds that this film also remains trapped in old worldviews; relying on a ‘fundamental gender essentialism’ that equates women with suffering and exploitation and men with violence and domination, Beatrice promises but does not deliver ‘a progressive, empowering and refreshingly different film that dares to depict genuine female agency’ (pp. 130, 116). Joseph M. Sullivan and Kristin...

Introduction:Assembling Arthur Leah Haught (bio) and Leila K. Norako (bio) In his 2013 study of the relationships between form, content, and interpretation in fourteenth-century London's manuscript culture, Arthur Bahr draws on a diverse range of disciplinary approaches to define compilation 'not as an objective quality of either texts or objects, but rather as a mode of perceiving such forms so as to disclose an interpretably meaningful arrangement, thereby bringing into being a text/work that is more than the sum of its parts.'1 Here, Bahr evokes and complicates the codicological term compilatio in order to consider how the physical layout of manuscripts as historical objects might produce literary arguments. The decision to read 'compilationally,' then, accounts for the document-as-object's historical and textual specificity while also acknowledging that the ways we will interpret the historical and textual implications of that document are always inherently subjective. While the forms of medieval compilations can vary substantially, Bahr argues that they all reward compilational reading as assemblages and fragments, because they all exhibit evidence of being purposefully assembled to explore specific concerns, and they exist (intentionally or accidentally) as fragments that defy restrictive readings and open up avenues of engagement not necessarily intended by their medieval compilers. The notion of assemblage at the heart of Bahr's study, like that of compilation, extends beyond the physical artifact to include the 'intersecting temporalities created by the histories of a compilation's authors, scribes, patrons, and later handlers,' including modern audiences.2 Although none of the examples discussed by Bahr are Arthurian in nature, his suggestion that we 'read compilationally' nonetheless stands to illuminate Arthurian scholarship. Arthurianists frequently find themselves analyzing single texts from a variety of manuscripts in their research, and they also regularly struggle to find a cost-effective way to teach Arthurian materials given the disparate manuscript traditions from which they emerge. Many Arthurian romances, for example, survive in a single manuscript alongside non-Arthurian texts, and few of those manuscripts contain more than a handful of explicitly Arthurian materials, which makes labeling them [End Page 3] Arthurian compilations a matter of debate. Indeed, with the exception of the Winchester Manuscript (BL Additional MS 59678) of Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur—itself a compilation of Arthurian materials from a variety of manuscripts and traditions—some might argue that there is no such thing as an English Arthurian manuscript.3 And yet, as the number of Arthurian texts that survive the Middle Ages attest, the legend was exceedingly and undeniably popular with a reach spanning much of the Latin Christian world and thriving across several centuries. Moreover, many individual contributions to the legend are inherently intertextual in nature, allowing for and even encouraging a compilational reading of texts across different manuscripts in an attempt to 'assemble' as complete a picture of Arthur and his knights as possible. Consider, for example, the plethora of Gawain romances that circulate across late medieval England in a wide variety of manuscripts, each of which offers a portrait of the knight convergent in some ways and divergent in others.4 As a result, we found ourselves wondering: what happens if we extend Bahr's invitation to read compilationally to the Arthurian materials we both teach and write about with frequency? What insights might be gained about individual texts and the larger legend? What new avenues for studying Arthuriana emerge when we allow for exchanges between codicology and formalism? How might thinking of Arthuriana as a capacious assemblage enhance our studies of it? The conversations spurred by these types of questions, we quickly realized, had been influencing both of our thinking long before Bahr's book challenged us to think about them head on. Since graduate school, we have discussed the many ways our thematic and codicological interests have contributed to our own Arthurian 'assemblages.' Leah Haught's scholarship tends to focus on what she calls an 'aesthetics of failure' within Middle English Arthuriana in particular, which has led her to consider both the socio-historical contexts associated with specific texts and the intertextual nature of the legend as a whole in order to explore the larger implications of the successes and...

Reviewed by: Conduct Becoming: Good Wives and Husbands in the Later Middle Ages by Glen Burger Nicole Sidhu glen burger, Conduct Becoming: Good Wives and Husbands in the Later Middle Ages. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. 272. isbn: 978–0–8122–4960–6. $65. The study of wifely virtue, its role in the home and in the broader sociopolitical imaginary, is a standby of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century studies. Medievalists pay far less attention to the 'good wife,' in part because medieval gender politics has seemed to many to be rooted in a misogynist disgust for female reproduction that allowed only nuns and virgin maidens to attain exemplary female virtue. Medievalists have also long been aware that their period sees significant transformations in notions of marriage—most notably the emergence of affection, mutual companionship, and sexual fulfillment as marital ideals that came to equal the traditional values of economic and familial alliance. And yet, while historians have examined the economics that undergirded this new vision of marriage, the deeper cultural transformations that enabled and nurtured it have thus far remained a mystery. Enter Glenn Burger, with a pioneering and intellectually ambitious new study that seeks to fill these gaps in our intellectual and cultural history. Burger's subject is conduct literature for women, but rather than analyzing it as a prescription for gendered norms of behavior, he characterizes conduct literature as part of a broader cultural movement that changed gender relations. Becoming Conduct provides a timely revision to medieval conduct studies (a field just now reaching conceptual middle age and due for a reboot) by redefining conduct literature. Instead of examining the traditional manuals of behavior that have thus far been the field's focus, Burger expands the definition of 'conduct' to include a much broader swath of texts aimed at instructing women. For Burger, conduct literature is not just about formulating normative modes of gender behavior but is part of larger social and cultural transformation that sees ideals of virtue, and the cultural authority associated with them, expanding from the clergy to the laity. Integral to this movement is an emerging notion of ethical subject-hood for both lay men and women that is constructed out of their marital roles as a 'good husband' and 'good wife.' Examining a range of texts focused on women's conduct, Burger notes the emergence of a focus on ideals relating to women as wives, rather than aristocratic lovers (according to the tradition of fin amors) or female religious (the focus of instructional texts like Ancrene Wisse). Fueled by a new emphasis on marriage as a sacrament by Church authorities, conduct manuals of the 'long fourteenth century' present a new ideal that foregrounds a wife's virtuous conduct and its ability to alter marital and social relations. By rooting their ideals in married virtue, these texts [End Page 115] diverge from earlier medieval traditions in allowing the good wife to, for the first time, equal the virgin nun in her potential as an ethical subject. The emerging ideal of 'the good wife,' Burger proposes, has far-reaching consequences, including a concomitant new ideal of 'the good husband' for men and a new model of social relations that makes household relations a fitting metaphor for relations of ruler to the ruled. Chapter One examines the Journées Chrétiennes—works that provided guidelines to spiritually ambitious secular women on how to emulate the devotional discipline of monks and nuns. These texts adjusted monastic practice to the busy life in the home to allow the wife to claim spiritual virtue within the confines of married life. In doing so, they positioned the wife as a subject with ethical potential. Chapter Two turns to texts more commonly recognized as conduct literature. Focused on the behavior of women in the secular world, these works include Louis IX's Les Enseignements de Saint Louis à sa fille Isabelle, Durand de Champagne's Speculum dominarum, and the Livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry. Here, Burger considers how the texts move away from the idea of woman as irretrievably fallen or wayward (common in clerical writings on women) to imagine woman's nature as...

Reviewed by: The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions by Karen Sullivan Laine E. Doggett karen sullivan, The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 299. isbn: 978–0–226–54026–9. $35. If you have ever felt guilty or shallow for succumbing to the pleasures of reading romance, Karen Sullivan offers a potent antidote to the critical poisons against this [End Page 122] genre. Focusing on Old French Arthurian romances from the 1170s to the 1240s, including those by Wace, Chrétien de Troyes, Robert de Boron, the Vulgate and Post Vulgate cycles, plus some Latin works, Sullivan argues that romances address criticisms in the texts themselves, both objections made in the Middle Ages and in centuries afterwards. To fully engage with romance, Sullivan recommends that readers entertain uncertainty, ambiguity, imagination, and wonder—that is, contemplative modes—rather than rationalism (logic, philosophy). Sullivan's textual analyses model a contemplative approach in that she often cites several works in a paragraph, guiding readers to a sense of an interrelated web of themes and stories, not stand-alone works. The Introduction surveys the development of romance and major polarities in its reception, from those who fault its excesses to essentialists who appreciate its archetypes. The first chapter, 'Romance and Its Reception,' extends this critical history with cases for and against romance, incorporating a wealth of overlooked or forgotten commentary across centuries. Chapter Two, 'Merlin: Magic, Miracles, and Marvels,' asks how to interpret Merlin's acts: aided by demons or marvels? While Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini shows Merlin, living alone in the forest, as a madman and seer, Geoffrey's Historia, Wace, and Robert de Boron depict Merlin's skill and intellect in building and his ability to predict the future. Moreover, the romances offer conflicting views of Merlin's purported diabolical origins. Sullivan proposes that readers accept and even delight in Merlin's incomprehensibility. Chapter Three, 'King Arthur: History and Fiction,' addresses the objection leveled by historians and others that romance's portrayals of Arthur thoroughly mingle historical fact and fiction, leaving audiences unsure who he was. Sullivan demonstrates that the romances also contain uncertainties: questions about Arthur's suitability to serve as king, or the potential of such a glorious court to actually exist, and conflicting claims about his death. Sullivan contends that romance does not classify events as history or fable; instead, it 'invites us to resist the desire for certitude' (p. 147) and to dwell with ambiguity. In Chapter Four, 'Lancelot of the Lake: The Reality of the Ideal,' Sullivan argues that the issue is not Lancelot's immorality (although hermits reproach him) but the inability of those around him to respond appropriately to Lancelot's—and Guinevere's—excellence: both are repeatedly described as the 'best.' Problems ensue: some doubt the claims made about him; others envy Lancelot; the Damsel of Escalot dies for lack of him. Sullivan also demonstrates the importance of Galehaut (a participant) and the Lady of Malehaut (an observer) in Lancelot's and Guinevere's affair, which substantially recasts our understanding of it, albeit not through contemplative approaches proffered in other chapters. The query of Chapter Five, 'The Quest of the Holy Grail: The Sacredness of the Secular,' is whether one should read the grail quest as a Christian allegory given that no religious text or commentary links it to Christianity. Sullivan documents an expansion of the practices and understanding of the Eucharist and penance, including pilgrimages, at the time and argues that they influence the representations [End Page 123] of the grail, lance, and quest. Yet, they cannot wholly account for them as they retain indeterminate aspects upon which the romances linger. Chapter Six, 'Truth and the Imagination: From Romance to Children's Fantasy,' considers fantasy literature's capacity to provide access to truth through imagination. Following a deft capsule intellectual history of detractors and defenders of imagination, Sullivan examines C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (alongside his critical, autobiographical, and apologetic texts) and the Harry Potter series to show that characters who trust their imaginations obtain their desires while those who reject them fail in their pursuits. This study...

Reviewed by: Publishing the Grail in Medieval and Renaissance France by Leah Tether Leona Archer leah tether, Publishing the Grail in Medieval and Renaissance France. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2017. Pp. 224. isbn: 9781843844266. $99. In Publishing the Grail in Medieval and Renaissance France, Leah Tether explores concepts of publishing through the lens of Grail literature and an examination of manuscript evidence and early print editions of Grail narratives. One of the central thesis statements of the volume asserts that pre-print book production can be considered an early form of publishing and Tether’s arguments are compelling, citing numerous records that demonstrate a thriving book trade in pre-print French society. This is explored in great depth in Chapter One: ‘Publishing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.’ Tether’s claim for a medieval publishing trade does not only arise from the records of book traders and those who commissioned manuscripts, however, but from evidence found within the texts themselves. In each of the next four chapters, the following medieval French Grail romances are examined in relation to the chapter theme: Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal, the Bliocadran, Elucidation, and the Continuations; Perlesvaus; and the Estoire del saint Graal and the Queste del Saint Graal of the Vulgate Cycle. The first section of each chapter presents the methodological framework and main arguments of the chapter, which are then supported by a detailed exploration of the primary texts. Chapter Two (‘Blurbing the Grail’) argues that the paratexts, colophons, and prologues, which frequently accompany both manuscript and early-print editions of Grail romances, may all constitute what we would now call a blurb; that is, a promotional copy that announces the narrative with the crucial purpose of enticing contemporary readers to engage with said text. Tether also proposes that the development of such texts charts changing literary tastes with a preference for more chivalric-focused Grail narratives in the later Middle Ages, illustrated by the material presentation of these in early printed books. Chapter Three (‘Disclosing the Author’) claims that the ways in which French Grail narratives disclose authorship evolve over time, while addressing the thorny questions that so often loom large over any discussion of medieval authorship; to whom do we refer when we employ the term ‘author’ and according to what definition(s)? Through a close examination of peritextual representations of authorship in French Grail literature, Tether asserts that publishers were consciously working with the ‘author’ as a brand (not necessarily a named individual) that they could exploit in order to market their books to particular consumers. The previously explored concepts of blurbing and authorship drive the discussion forward in Chapter Four (‘Re-packaging the Grail’). Here, Tether analyzes the data in order explore how Grail narratives may have been compiled to appeal to successive generations of medieval readers, by responding to changing tastes. The final chapter of the book (Five: ‘Patronage and Promotion’), examines the role of patrons in Grail literature (both those who commissioned the first creation of a Grail text from an author and those who commissioned copies), and the development of patronage as book production moved from manuscript to print. Tether concludes that across both these models of textual production, patronage [End Page 163] is a valuable commercial tool that can be leveraged to generate not only financial rewards, but also political and social benefits. This monograph is attractively presented, rigorously researched, and convincingly substantiated. The arrangement of chapters is logical and coherent, and readers with specific research interests (i.e. early book production or Grail literature) will easily find relevant sections. Consequently, this work should appeal to readers interested in a range of intersecting subjects; from the history of publishing to Old French and Arthurian literature, to manuscript and early printed book production. Leona Archer University of Surrey Copyright © 2019 Arthuriana

Reviewed by: Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great: Transnational Texts in England and France by Venetia Bridges Levilson C. Reis venetia bridges, Medieval Narratives of Alexander the Great: Transnational Texts in England and France. Studies in Medieval Romance, XX. Pp. xi, 306. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2018. isbn: 978–1–84384–502–7. $99. This monograph on Alexander the Great challenges the traditional medievalist approach to studying great historical figures and the medieval translatio of their exploits often based on a ‘restricted interpretive framework dominated by vernacular and nationalistic imperatives’ (p. 12). The corrective is a ‘transnational’ rather than ‘local’ study of the Alexander corpus that opens the dialogue that various iterations of the Alexander material engage with one another regardless of culture, language, or polity. The scope of this transnational interaction is, however, limited to France and England, but it does not hinder this book’s comparative approach. The first part of this study focuses on Alexander narratives associated with France and the court of Philip Augustus. Preparing the reader to delve into the core of this study, Chapter One surveys the Greek and Latin sources of the Alexander corpus dating from the fourth century BCE up to the medieval period (see also Appendices One and Two). This chapter lays out the argument that, since antiquity, there has been a ‘need to interpret Alexander in culturally relevant terms’ (p. 63). Chapter Two focuses precisely on the historical and political uses of the Alexander material in the construction of medieval dynastic identities, focusing on two Latin epics, Walter de Châtillon’s Alexandreis (c. 1180) and John of Exeter’s Ylias (c. 1180), as examples of speculum principis. Given the sic et non poetics of Châtillon’s translatio, this chapter reconsiders the Alexandreis as a backhanded paean to Philip Augustus, at once celebrated as a chivalrous king and criticized for his squabbles with his uncle William, to whom Châtillon dedicates the poem. Beginning with the notion that the Alexandreis and Alexandre de Paris’ Roman d’Alexandre (c. 1177) share the same sources, Chapter Three argues that, while the former is concerned with historical accuracy, the latter inclines more to a stripe of ‘ethical translatio of the antique material’ (p. 118). The Alexandre ‘anxiously’ corrects the depiction of Alexander as a duplicitous other by redressing him as the paragon for Christian rulers and knights. Notwithstanding the positive recasting of Alexander as a political leader, this chapter eschews imperium, the political aspects of translatio, and Chrétien de Troyes’ reformulation of the classical translatio in terms of chevalerie in Cligés (c. 1176). Some engagement with this conceptualization of translatio might have pointed to translatio’s transhistorical rather than ‘transnational’ aspects. The last two chapters turn the reader’s attention to Alexander narratives associated with the British Isles and the sphere of influence of Henry II. Chapter Four studies [End Page 105] the Roman de toute chevalerie (c. 1174–1200) and the Roman de Horn (1172) for signs of a specifically insular translatio of the Alexander matter. As other scholars have concluded, and Thomas of Kent himself notes, the Roman de toute chevalerie (RTC) draws mostly on Greek sources, the conclusion being that it remains ‘independent of continental Alexander versions’ (p. 152). Despite its faithful borrowings, the RTC idiosyncratically rejects Alexander as a speculum principis, whereas the Horn offers a ‘positive portrayal of decisive kingship’ (p. 180), reflecting Henry II’s consolidation of power over Irish and Anglo-Norman lords. In a study of Alexander narratives in late Middle English in Chapter Five, it becomes clear that romances such as Kyng Alisaunder (KA), Of Arthour and of Merlin (AM), and The Seege or Batayle of Troye (SBT), were all three composed around the same time (c. 1131–40) and were adapted for local audiences who were more interested in romance poetics than ‘instructive learning’ (p. 204). Although the first two draw upon Latin and French sources of the Trojan and Arthurian materials, they tend to simplify the lexical, stylistic, and historical content of the original sources. The SBT also condenses the history of Troy (abbreviato being here an effect of translatio). In pursuing intertextual links between the KA, RTC...

Many films depicting the European Middle Ages delve into issues of nation building and national identity. This is problematic for the early medieval period and for Arthurian cinema. Whether or not a historical King Arthur ever existed, nation states as we know them certainly did not, and both national and ethnic identity are difficult to discern for Britain in the early Middle Ages. This essay looks at issues of national and ethnic identity raised by three Arthurian films: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), King Arthur (2004), and The Last Legion (2007). (CAS)

The complex intertextuality of T.H. White's The Once and Future King problematizes definitions of source and adaptation in medievalism. Positioned as a footnote to, a preface to, and a commentary upon Malory's Morte Darthur, White's work demonstrates the productive possibilities of adaptive relationships that frustrate our attempts to 'taxonomize' them.

Reviewed by: Romantic Women Writers and Arthurian Legend: The Quest for Knowledge by Katie Garner Roger Simpson katie garner, Romantic Women Writers and Arthurian Legend: The Quest for Knowledge. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. 311, 3 b/w illus. isbn: 978–1–137–59711–3 (cloth), isbn: 978–1–137–59712–0 (eBook). $119.99 (cloth), $89 (eBook). Katie Garner’s Romantic Women Writers and Arthurian Legend is a meticulous study of the subject between 1770 and 1850 in Britain. It builds soundly on findings by previous bibliographers, and it incorporates a great range of research from the last thirty years [End Page 93] covering the Arthurian Revival, antiquarianism, the Gothic Revival, romanticism, readership, travel writing, Welsh studies, gender studies and women’s writing. The introductory chapter outlines the background. As this period witnessed ‘an unprecedented number’ (pp. 1–2) of women entering print, and as many of them wrote about Arthurian subjects, Garner focuses on the ways in which women accessed the Arthurian legend. The Arthurian Revival in the late eighteenth century had required a wider and more coherent knowledge of the Arthurian story than was current. As manuscripts of medieval literature were virtually unknown, and as Malory had been out of print since 1634, the Revival depended on research by modern antiquarians. These were men, who moved in male cultural circles, and their findings were often published by antiquarian book clubs which denied membership to women. Even though the British Library was open to women, few made use of it, presumably because of social constraints. Moreover, Arthurian material was widely considered ‘immoral’ and unsuitable for female readers. Despite, or because of, these obstacles, women found other ways of becoming familiar with the Arthurian story and created a ‘distinct form’ (p. 10) of female Arthuriana. Garner’s five chapters make an intricate analysis and balanced appraisal of these issues. Her second chapter (‘Arthuriana for the “Fair Sex”’) highlights the bowdlerization of reading matter for women, and their wish not to appear overly emotional, hence their shift to ‘history’ rather than ‘romance.’ Male scholarly domination was partially offset by three female historians. Radagunda Roberts, for example, contributed a series of articles about Queen Consorts in the The Lady’s Magazine (1775) and included Guinevere among their number. Although Roberts’ source was Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (a key text at this time), she re-assesses Guinevere’s role in a far better light. Susannah Dobson’s Memoirs of Ancient Chivalry (1784) drew on untapped medieval French sources, especially the Vulgate. And Clara Reeve’s The Progress of Romance (1785) influenced surveys by Walter Scott, John Moore, and Anna Barbauld. Undoubtedly many women were heavily indebted to Bishop Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, which included six Arthurian poems and an essay on metrical romances, but his three-volume edition was expensive. An anonymous lady’s solution was Ancient Ballads (1807), which was cheaper but simpler (by omitting Percy’s footnotes) and also more ‘moral’—it was meant for ‘young ladies’ (p. 50)—by censoring ‘The Legend of King Arthur’ and omitting ‘The Boy and the Mantle.’ However, this edition was read profitably by Louisa Stuart Costello, prompting her poem ‘A Dream,’ a visionary glimpse of King Arthur, and thereby ‘highly symbolic of women’s compromised proximity to medieval texts’ (p. 53). But a key text, Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, would become cheaply available in two editions in 1816 (with a dearer one in 1817), and a close knowledge of Malory was revealed by Costello, Caroline Norton, and Charlotte M. Yonge. Yet Malory remained unread by most women, perhaps because it was considered ‘a re-assertion of masculinity’ (p. 56). Their Arthurian focus would lie instead in Gothic verse, travel narratives, and literary annuals. Chapter Three (‘Women’s Gothic Verse and King Arthur’) points to the connection between medieval and modern romance, citing Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson’s ‘Gothic [End Page 94] trash’ (p. 73) chapbook tale, Sorcerer’s Palace, whose hero, Sir Lybius, is a reworking of the medieval Libeaus Desconnus, which Wilkinson had taken from Percy’s ‘Essay on Metrical Romance.’ A male antiquarian inspiration for women’s verse was Thomas Warton’s...