The Grail legend has survived for centuries in various forms, in strands of literature, music, art and film, but never has it been so popular as it is today. But few of those reading Dan Brown or the numerous accounts of a real and historical Grail will ever have the opportunity to read the original stories, written as they were by a number of different writers, over time and in a variety of languages.
     Nigel Bryant knows these sources intimately. He has read and translated them all and from them he has woven a single, consistent narrative that includes all the characters, key events and themes, with no less mystery or drama. His edition combines authenticity with accessibility - 99% is in the words of the medieval originals.
     Read this enthralling story and understand why it has charmed, beguiled and inspired for so long.

Biblio info: ISBN 978 184384 0831, 272pp, Price: £9.99/$18.99. Published May 2006

“A childhood excitement about King Arthur stories developed at Oxford into a serious study of medieval Arthurian literature. The Grail was always especially fascinating, not least because the stories that became the foundation of the Grail legend, written by a number of different writers with very different motives, vary wildly not just in their aims but in their narrative. I found I was on a quest myself – a quest for a coherent story. I was very aware that, whenever asked to “tell the story of the Holy Grail”, I would be stumbling through a forest of contradictions, and aware, too, that although the Grail was a tantalising and meaningful emblem for many people, few had any but the haziest notion of what happened to Perceval, Lancelot, Gawain or Galahad on their quests. Yet the medieval story-tellers have left us a wealth of haunting and atmospheric adventures, and I have tried in this book to take the best and most important elements of all the medieval Grail romances and construct a single, consistent and unified version of this magnificent story. It is no more and no less than a modern redaction, the kind of work that a medieval scribe might have compiled if he had had, as I did, the benefit of all the Grail texts available simultaneously. My hope and intention is that it should combine authenticity – it is 99% in the words of the medieval originals – with real accessibility, making it as gripping and as readable as any modern novel.”

Part ripping yarn and part religious myth, re-told in a seemingly seamless narrative with verve and panache, true to its sources but eminently accessible to a modern audience. PENDRAGON

Fine, inspiring literature made wholly accessible. FORTEAN TIMES

Can be recommended to those who wish to acquaint themselves with one of the most enchanting medieval legends. INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF BIBLICAL STUDIES

[M]akes the Grail material accessible to students on several levels, from the undergraduate to the interested professional scholar outside of French medieval studies or Arthurian studies or medieval literature in general. MEDIEVAL REVIEW

An original compilation that ingeniously weaves together several diverse strands of the Grail legend. It is an intriguing, and occasionally surprising, refashioning of the tale...a delightful read. ARTHURIANA