All the threads that make the stuff of the Arthurian legends - chivalry and betrayal, high romance and magic - come together with unequalled power in Malory's vibrant re-telling of the Arthurian stories. His Morte Darthur has been widely read for centuries, but the author's own life has been as variously reported as that of any Arthurian knight. Who was he? Peter Field's identification of the real Sir Thomas Malory is a fascinating detective story, drawing clues from a thorough exploration of contemporary records of military campaigns, local skirmishes, and political factions.

The first serious attempts to identify Malory were made in the 1890s, but the Malory who seemed most likely was found to have been accused of attempted murder, rape, extortion, sacrilegious robbery - and, although he seems never to have been brought to trial, to have spent ten years or more in prison. Could this be reconciled with the authorship of the most famous chivalric romance in English? Opinions differed; other possible authors, other Malorys, were proposed. It is only with this book, which gives the fullest consideration yet undertaken to the competing arguments (drawing on documents many of which were unknown in 1966 when the last book on Malory's life appeared) that the identity of Sir Thomas Malory is at last established beyond serious question.