The Romance of Tristan and Iseult

A tale of chivalry and doomed, transcendent love, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult is one of the most resonant works of Western literature, as well as the basis for our enduring idea of romance. The story of the Cornish knight and the Irish princess who meet by deception, fall in love by magic, and pursue that love in defiance of heavenly and earthly law has inspired artists from Matthew Arnold to Richard Wagner. But nowhere has it been retold with greater eloquence and dignity than in Joseph B dier's edition, which weaves several medieval sources into a seamless whole, elegantly translated by Hilaire Belloc and Paul Rosenfeld.

Joseph Bedier (1864-1938) was a distinguished French medievalist, literary historian, and poet. His authoritative reconstruction of The Romance of Tristan and Iseult from the ancient French poems and a variety of other early sources was originally published to considerable acclaim in France in 1900. He also produced a critical edition of the Chanson de Roland, among other volumes of literary history.

Hilaire Belloc was born near Paris in 1870 and raised in England, though he remained a French citizen until 1902. He attended Balliol College in Oxford. His most famous works were his humorous morality poems and cautionary tales for children. After the loss of his son in World War I he wrote a series of historical biographies and religious texts, reaffirming his Roman Catholic faith. He died in 1953.