In his new edition of the Morte Darthur, P. J. C. Field calls the Winchester Manuscript ‘the most important single piece of evidence for what Malory intended to write’ about King Arthur and his knights. The manuscript has served as the base text for all major editions of the Morte except that of James Spisak since Eugène Vinaver's 1947 edition, and one of the most important ways in which the Winchester Manuscript diverges from the Caxton incunable is by subdividing the narrative differently. Where Caxton's edition subdivides into 507 chapters and twenty-one books, the Winchester Manuscript includes five closing passages that refer to Malory as author. Together with a sixth closing passage that appears at the end of Caxton's edition of the Morte Darthur (the final gathering of the Winchester Manuscript is missing), these authorial closing passages indicate the Morte Darthur contains six books. However, the Winchester Manuscript also includes a number of other strongly worded transition passages and a variety of visual features that mark the openings and closings of both books (the largest narrative segments in the Morte Darthur) and stories (smaller subdivisions within books). These features have led scholars to propose that the Morte contains three, four, five, seven or eight books, each of which contain many stories.

While the presence of the references to Malory shows that the Winchester scribes remained more faithful to their exemplar's subdivisions than did Caxton, the scribes also modified the Morte Darthur's divisions in the Winchester Manuscript. At the very least, the scribes decided how to employ the decorative features – initials, blank space, rubrication and elevated script – which have influenced readers’ opinions about the number and nature of divisions appearing throughout the manuscript. The scribes appear to have added at least three initials that did not appear in their exemplar. At one point, they also ignore the apparently authorial claim that a new section should begin on a new page, and instead skip only one line before beginning the next book. Scribes edited more than the decorative features of the manuscript, however. They also edited the text of the manuscript to improve both the sense of the narrative and the aesthetics of the page.

This volume of Arthurian Literature puts considerable emphasis on Arthurian narratives in material culture and historical context, as well as on purely literary analysis. It begins with Larissa Tracy's wide-ranging study of torture in relation to texts from Chrétien to Malory, by way of the Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Arthur and Gorlagon. She argues, with a wealth of fascinating evidence, that the inclusion or omission of torture in English texts reflects particular attitudes to the use of torture in English law and society, which related to a sense of national identity. The Stanzaic Morte has been undeservedly neglected: Marco Nievergelt's study of emotion in relation to space in the poem indicates a very subtle attitude on the part of the writer to subjectivity and interiority, and will encourage much re-reading of one of Malory's key sources. Ralph Norris, who has produced a valuable study of Malory's library, addresses the question of the originality of ‘The Tale of Sir Gareth’: he accepts the theory that it is by Malory, but points out striking parallels with the Knight of the Cart story as found in Chrétien and in some versions of the French prose Lancelot. This essay throws new light not only on the source(s) of the Gareth tale but also on the popular Fair Unknown theme. The next two essays also focus on Malory, addressing two central themes in his work: battle and fellowship. Lisa Robeson discusses battle scenes, arguing that they ‘offer not only a lesson in chivalry but in chivalric kingship’, and that chivalry must be embodied in the person of the king as well as in great knights such as Lancelot. Richard Sévère considers Arthurian fellowship in Malory through the lens of Cicero's comments on friendship in the very influential De amicitia; he emphasises both the comfort of fellowship and its dangers for the Arthurian world.

The last three essays scrutinise selected Arthurian narratives very closely in their original material forms, rather than modern versions. David Eugene Clark analyses concluding formulae in the Winchester manuscript of Malory's Morte Darthur, comparing them with Caxton's printed version; he uses his findings to argue that scribes made numerous and significant changes to the structure and division of Malory's text, sometimes blurring the distinctions between larger and smaller narrative sections.