John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
by
Laura F. Hodges
TEXT:
Steinbeck, John. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. Ed. Chase Horton. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976.
MANUSCRIPTS:
Arthur. Carbon typescript, 546 pages, undated. Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin. [Translated from Malory; contains some typos and misspellings; not revised for publication by Steinbeck. LFH]
Manuscript of The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. (First Draft typed and annotated in pencil.) Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA.
ARTICLES AND NOTES:
Covici, Pascal, Jr. "Steinbeck's Quest for Magnanimity (As Part of the Quest for John Steinbeck)." Steinbeck Quarterly 10 (Summer-Fall 1977): 79-89.
Ditsky, John. "The Friend at the Round Table: A Note on Steinbeck's Acts." American Literature; 49 (1978): 633-35.
Dowell, Bob. "A Note on John Steinbeck in King Arthur's Court." The Arthurian Myth of Quest and Magic: A Festschrift in Honor of Lavon B. Fulwiler. Ed.William E. Tanner. Dallas: Caxton's Modern Arts P, 1993. 71-74.
Garcia, Reloy. Introduction. Steinbeck's Posthumous Work: Essays in Criticism. Tetsumaro Hayashi and Thomas J. Moore. Steinbeck Monograph Series no. 14 (1989).
Hodges, Laura. "Arthur, Lancelot, and the Psychodrama of Steinbeck." Steinbeck Quarterly 13 (Summer-Fall 1980): 71-79.
---. "The Personae of Acts: Symbolic Repetition and Variation." Steinbeck Quarterly 12 (Winter-Spring 1979): 20-27.
---. "Steinbeck's Adaptation of Malory's Launcelot: A Triumph of Realism over Supernaturalism." Quondam et futurus 2 (Spring 1992): 69-81.
---. "Steinbeck's Dream Sequence in The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights." Arthurian Interpretations 4 (Spring 1990): 35-49.
Mitchell, Robin C. "Steinbeck and Malory: A Correspondence with Eugène Vinaver." Steinbeck Quarterly 10 (Summer-Fall 1977): 70-79.
Moorman, Charles. "Yet Some Men Say . . . that Kynge Arthure Ys Nat Ded." The Arthurian Tradition: Essays in Convergence. Ed. Mary Flowers Braswell, and John Bugge. Tuscaloosa/London: U of Alabama P, 1988. 188-99, ns. 232-33.
Simmonds, Roy S. "A Note on Steinbeck's Unpublished Arthurian Stories." Steinbeck and the Arthurian Theme. Ed. Tetsumaro Hayashi. Steinbeck Monograph Series no. 5 (1975): 25-27.
---. "The Unrealized Dream: Steinbeck's Modern Version of Malory," Steinbeck and the Arthurian Theme. Ed. Tetsumaro Hayashi. Steinbeck Monograph Series no. 5 (1975): 30-43.
Stork, Nancy P. "The Pale and Perfect Measured Parade: The First Draft of Steinbeck's Acts of King Arthur at San Jose State University." The Medieval Forum 4 (Dec. 2004). This is an on-line journal at: http://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/Volume4/Stork.html.
Sundermeier, Michael. "Why Steinbeck Didn't Finish His Arthur--The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976). Steinbeck's Posthumous Work: Essays in Criticism. Ed. Tetsumaro Hayashi, and Thomas J. Moore. Steinbeck Monograph Series no. 14 (1989). 34-42.
Welsh, Andrew. "Lancelot at the Crossroads in Malory and Steinbeck." Philological Quarterly 70.4 (1991): 485-502.
Williams, Mary C. "Lessons from Ladies in Steinbeck's 'Gawain, Ewain, and Marhalt.'" Avalon to Camelot 1 (Summer 1984): 40-41.
Williams, M. C. New Republic 176 (February 5, 1977): 34.
RELATED MATERIALS:
Hayashi, Tetsumaro, ed. Steinbeck and the Arthurian Theme. Steinbeck Monograph Series, No. 5, 1975.
Steinbeck, Elaine, and Robert Wallsten, eds. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. NY: Penguin Books, 1976.
Steinbeck, John. Letters to Elizabeth. No. 157. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1978.
UNPUBLISHED MASTER'S THESIS:
Hodges, Laura F. Once Upon Every Time: Steinbeck's Rewriting of Malory. Thesis for MA degree, University of Houston at Clear Lake, 1977. [Appendix includes letters to LFH from Elaine Steinbeck and Eugène Vinaver.]