Le Morte d'Arthur (originally spelled Le Morte Darthur, Middle French for "the death of Arthur"[1]) is a reworking of existing tales by Sir Thomas Malory about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table. Malory interprets existing French and English stories about these figures and adds original material (e.g., the Gareth story).
Le Morte d'Arthur was first published in 1485 by William Caxton, and is today one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature in English. Many modern Arthurian writers have used Malory as their principal source, including T. H. White in his popular The Once and Future King and Tennyson in The Idylls of the King.
Picked this up on Audible to read more about the oldest versions of the Arthurian legend - and this is about as old as they get, dating from 1485. Derek Jacobi does a brilliant job narrating the epic in a conversational way that makes the old English very accessible. Very interesting to read this version of the story and see how much it has changed in more recent versions, as well as how much storytelling style itself has changed. Overall conclusion: poor Mordred, while not the best of characters, has far less to do with the fall of Arthur and Camelot than Guenevier and Lancelot, who really seem to me to be the cause of the entire kingdom's downfall. Interesting study of the perception of what was considered chivalrous, heroic, and admirable at that time in history.