Book excerpt: With its contextualizing introduction, notes, and gloss, this edition makes the Prose Merlin available to any student of Arthurian legend, no matter their level of proficiency in Middle English. Written in the latter half of the fifteenth century, the Prose Merlin is the first work of Arthurian literature written in English prose. The highly original poem, though based upon the French Vulgate cycle tradition of Arthurian legends, is full of episodes, motifs, and characters found nowhere else in the entire Arthurian corpus. Beginning with the story surrounding Merlin's birth, and charting the course of his fantastical life until his ambiguous death, Prose Merlin is an enchanting text for any class studying Arthuriana.