In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources.

Apparently written in prison at the end of the medieval English era, Le Morte d'Arthur was completed by Malory around 1470 and was first published in a printed edition in 1485 by William Caxton.

The exact identity of the author of Le Morte d'Arthur has long been the subject of speculation, as at least six historical figures bore the name of "Sir Thomas Malory" (in various spellings) during the late 15th century.

Field proposed that it was during a final stint at Newgate Prison in London that he wrote Le Morte d'Arthur,[6] and that Malory was released in October 1470 when Henry VI returned to the throne, dying only five months later.

Some late 20th-century researchers cast a doubt that this would make the Newbold Revel knight far too old to have written Le Morte: in prison in his mid-70s to early 80s, when, in Matthews' words, "the medieval view was that by sixty a man was bean fodder and forage, ready for nothing but death's pit.

[19] It is believed that Malory's original title intended was to be The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table, and only its final section to be named Le Morte Darthur.

In a literary sense, Malory's text is the most important of all the treatments of Arthurian legend in English language, influencing writers as diverse as Edmund Spenser, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Mark Twain and John Steinbeck.

[36] Most of the events take place in a historical fantasy version of Britain and France at an unspecified time (on occasion, the plot ventures farther afield, to Rome and Sarras, and recalls Biblical tales from the ancient Near East).

Earlier romance authors have already depicted the "Dark Ages" times of Arthur as a familiar, High-to-Late Medieval style world of armored knights and grand castles taking place of the Post-Roman warriors and forts.

"[39] According to Charles W. Moorman III, Malory intended "to set down in English a unified Arthuriad which should have as its great theme the birth, the flowering, and the decline of an almost perfect earthy civilization."

His writing can be divisive today, often regarded by critics (including prominent scholars such as Vinaver, George Saintsbury, Robert Lumiansky, C.S Lewis, and E. K. Chambers) as simplistic and unsophisticated from an artistic viewpoint.

[48] Other aspects of Malory's writing style include his abrupt abridging of much of the source material, especially in the early parts concerning Arthur's backstory and his rise to power (preferring the later adventures of the knights), apparently acting on an authorial assumption that the reader knows the story already and resulting in the problem of omitting important things "thereby often rendering his text obscure", and how he would sometimes turn descriptions of characters into proper names.

Years later, the now teenage Arthur suddenly becomes the ruler of the leaderless Britain when he removes the fated sword from the stone in the contest set up by Merlin, which proves his birthright that he himself had not been aware of.

It also includes the tale of Balyn and Balan (a lengthy section which Malory called a "booke" in itself), as well as some other episodes, such as King Pellinore's hunt for the Questing Beast and the treason of Arthur's sorceress half-sister Queen Morgan le Fay in the plot involving her lover Accolon.

On Merlin's advice, Arthur then takes away every newborn boy in his kingdom and all of them but Mordred (who miraculously survives and eventually indeed will kill his father in the end) perish at sea; this is mentioned matter-of-factly, with no apparent moral overtone.

According to Helen Cooper in Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte D'arthur – The Winchester Manuscript, the prose style, which mimics historical documents of the time, lends an air of authority to the whole work.

His throne is secure, and his knights including Griflet and Tor as well as Arthur's own nephews Gawain and Ywain (sons of Morgause and Morgan, respectively) have proven themselves in various battles and fantastic quests as told in the first volume.

Departing from Geoffrey of Monmouth's literary tradition in which Mordred is left in charge (as this happens there near the end of the story), Malory's Arthur leaves his court in the hands of Constantine of Cornwall and sails to Normandy to meet his cousin Hoel.

Following a series of battles resulting in the great victory over Lucius and his allies, and the Roman Senate's surrender, Arthur is crowned a Western Emperor but instead arranges a proxy government and returns to Britain.

Going back to a time before Book II, Malory establishes Lancelot, a young French orphan prince, as King Arthur's most revered knight through numerous episodic adventures, some of which he presented in comedic manner.

In Book III, based on parts of the French Prose Lancelot (mostly its 'Agravain' section, along with the chapel perilous episode taken from Perlesvaus),[16][59][60] his character is widely regarded as of central importance to the entire work, representing "the very paradigm of Malorian knighthood".

[61] Malory attempts to turn the focus of courtly love from adultery to service by having Lancelot dedicate doing everything he does for Queen Guinevere, the wife of his lord and friend Arthur, but avoid (for a time being) to committing to an adulterous relationship with her.

[62] Although a catalyst of the fall of Camelot, as it was in the French romantic prose cycle tradition, the moral handling of the adultery between Lancelot and Guinevere in Le Morte implies their relationship is true and pure, as Malory focused on the ennobling aspects of courtly love.

Other issues are demonstrated when Morgan enchants Lancelot, which reflects a feminization of magic, and in how the prominence of jousting tournament fighting in this tale indicates a shift away from battlefield warfare towards a more mediated and virtuous form of violence.

Malory's primary source for this long part was the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal, chronicling the adventures of many Knights of the Round Table in their mostly separate, pilgrimage-like journeys to find the Holy Grail.

After the confusion of the secular moral code he manifested within the previous book, Malory attempts to construct a new mode of chivalry by placing an emphasis on religion, albeit somewhat less than his French sources did, the degree of difference depending on an interpretation.

He stays true to her, tragically rejecting the desperate love of Elaine of Ascolat, and completes a series of trials that culminates in his rescue of the Queen from the abduction by the renegade knight Maleagant (this is also the first time the work explicitly mentions the couple's sexual adultery).

Lancelot's rescue party raids the execution, killing several loyal knights of the Round Table, including, unwittingly, Gawain's younger brothers Gareth and Gaheris.

Following the disappearance and presumed passing of King Arthur, who is succeeded by Constantine, Malory provides a short epilogue about the later lives and deaths of Bedivere, Guinevere, and Lancelot and his kinsmen.

[83][84] William Upcott's edition directly based on then-newly rediscovered Morgan copy of the first print Caxton version was published as Malory's Morte d'Arthur with Robert Southey's introduction and notes including summaries of the original French material from the Vulgate tradition in 1817.