Provenance of Malory's Text

              A literary work's "provenance," like that of any artifact from the past, tells us where it came from and how it got to us.  Provenance also tells us what happened to it along the way.  Because the author's meaning changes if the text is changed as it is transmitted (see Zumthor's "mouvance") interpreting Medieval literature often requires us to be aware of how the current edition of the text we are reading was altered in transmission.  Malory's case reads almost like a crime scene report.  To the lower right corner Oxford edition history, we should add P.J.C. Field's  1990 3rd Edition based on Vinaver's three-volume 2nd Edition (1967).