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The Winchester Manuscript

All editions prior to 1934 were based on the edition printed by Caxton. In June of that year, when the library of Winchester College was being catalogued, W. F. Oakeshott discovered a previously unknown manuscript copy—one of the most important medieval manuscripts discovered in the 20th century. Newspaper accounts appearing on June 25, June 26, August 25, and September 27, 1934 outlined to the public the unfolding story of the recognition that what Caxton had published in 1485 was not necessarily exactly what Malory had written.^[1] Oakeshott published an account of his remarkable discovery, "The Finding of the Manuscript," in 1963, chronicling the initial event and his realization that "this indeed was Malory," with "startling evidence of revision" in the Caxton edition.^[2] The "Winchester Manuscript" is regarded as being mostly, but not always, closer to Malory's original than is Caxton's text, although both derive separately from an earlier copy. Curiously, microscopic examination of ink smudges on the Winchester manuscript showed the marks to be offsets of newly printed pages set in Caxton's own font, indicating that same manuscript had been in Caxton's print shop. Unlike the Caxton edition, the Winchester MS is not divided into books and chapters. Indeed, in his preface, Caxton takes credit for the division.

Eugène Vinaver, an already-established Malory scholar, appeared in Winchester on June 27 asking to see the manuscript. Though he was encouraged to produce an edition himself, Oakeshott acknowledged Vinaver's editorial superiority and eventually ceded the project to him.^[3] But on the basis of his initial study of the manuscript, Oakeshott concluded as early as 1935 that the copy from which Caxton printed his edition "was already subdivided into books and sections."^[4] Based on a more exhaustive study of the manuscript alongside Caxton's edition, Vinaver reached similar conclusions, and in his 1947 edition—polemically entitled The Works of Sir Thomas Malory—Vinaver argued strongly that Malory had in fact not written a single book, but produced a series of Arthurian tales which were internally-consistent and independent works. Other scholars have pointed out that Malory, particularly in his later tales, added links to his own versions of events in earlier sections. They argued that Malory felt that the tales should cohere, even if Malory did not get to the point of producing a revision that achieved that goal. This is especially apparent in the final two tales, which even Vinaver agreed were intended to be read together. The question of the work's unity has never been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Whatever Malory's intentions for the individual books, he did mean them to be considered an interrelated series, if not a unified whole.