GALAHAD AND THE GRAIL, INAUGURAL TITLE IN MALCOLM GUITE’S FOUR-VOLUME MASTERWORK MERLIN’S ISLE: AN ARTHURIAD, BOWS MARCH 23
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Galahad and the Grail, the inaugural volume in famed poet, priest and Cambridge University fellow Malcolm Guite’s long-awaited masterwork, Merlin’s Isle: An Arthuriad, arrives March 23 from Nashville-based Rabbit Room Press. Hallmarked by its accessibility and appeal to audiences of all ages, the 372-page hardcover first edition of Galahad and the Grail is available for preorder now.
Making history as the first multi-volume epic poem retelling of Arthurian legend since Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King in 1859, Merlin’s Isle represents a true new classic of English literature and culminates a yearslong undertaking for Guite. Leading the groundbreaking series, Galahad and the Grail features a foreword from Hugo Award-winning author Susanna Clarke, who calls the title “An astonishing achievement, a ballad that picks you up and sweeps you onward into adventure, solemn magic, and beauty.”
Galahad and the Grail plumbs the depths of the human soul, carrying readers through the Wasteland, setting them upon the magical shores of Faerie in all its mystery and meaning as Sir Galahad and the other knights of the quest set out from Camelot to achieve the Holy Grail. The accomplishment of their goal will not only heal the wounded Fisher-King but will bring about the long hoped-for healing of the land itself.
“I have loved these stories since I was a child and I heard them from my mother who was a great storyteller herself but also had extensive knowledge of the medieval sources, especially the great gathering of those stories and their rendering into Middle English by Sir Thomas Malory in the 15th century,” Guite says. “So, the version that first moved me was not some sanitized Hollywood version, but the real thing, haunting, numinous, continuously suggestive of the holy and beautiful reality of God and His saints and angels shimmering through the fabric of the stories of the knights with all their aspirations and all their human flaws.”
“Malcolm Guite’s fluency with the poetic traditions and stories of the past, along with his theological bent for illuminating the deep mysteries of faith, and his rare gift of making poetry approachable for the modern reader, have all endeared him to us as a kindred spirit and a fellow traveler,” states Rabbit Room Press publisher Pete Peterson. “Despite its daunting scope, the four-volume Merlin’s Isle is an epic poem not constrained to the shelves of academia but bound as well for the young reader enraptured by tales of chivalric deed, or the light reader in search of the lyrical, or even the family reading aloud at day’s end.”
Galahad and the Grail showcases more than 25 exclusive illustrations from award-winning artist Stephen Crotts. His one-of-a-kind renderings will appear throughout the Merlin’s Isle series, adding further dimension to Guite’s poetry. “Visually imagining Malcolm’s telling of the Grail stories has become far more than a simple illustration project for me,” Crotts shares. “The further I’ve journeyed into the work, the more I’ve realized this book is an initiation in uncovering the enchantment that is built into the people and places around me. This quest isn’t an escape from the world, but an invitation to imagine the world we inhabit as a chalice being filled by love, and shared in communion.”
Celebrating the launch of Guite’s masterwork, Rabbit Room Press presents The Tale This Land Still Keeps, a 30-minute documentary giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the four-volume Merlin’s Isle series. Featuring insight from Guite and series illustrator Stephen Crotts, the piece was directed by award-winning filmmaker Patrick Shen and is slated to premier exclusively to paid subscribers of Guite’s YouTube channel later this month, with a wider release to follow.
On the heels of March’s Galahad and the Grail, Rabbit Room Press will release The Coming of Arthur (Fall 2026), Knights of the Round Table (Summer 2027), and The Passing of Arthur (Spring 2028), completing publication of the Merlin’s Isle: An Arthuriad series.
ABOUT MALCOLM GUITE
Malcolm Guite is a poet following the tradition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and George Herbert, a priest in the tradition of Lancelot Andrewes, and a scholar and literary critic in the tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. A Girton College Fellow at Cambridge University, Guite lectures widely in the United Kingdom and North America on theology and literature and is the author of several works of nonfiction and poetry, including Sounding the Seasons: 70 Sonnets for the Christian Year (Canterbury Press), which is now in its 10th printing, as well as The Singing Bowl: Collected Poems (Canterbury Press 2013), Parable and Paradox (Canterbury Press 2016), Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder 2017), After Prayer (Canterbury Press 2019), The Word Within the Words (DLT 2021) and Lifting the Veil (Square Halo 2021).
ABOUT THE RABBIT ROOM AND RABBIT ROOM PRESS
Conceived in 2007 as an experiment in creative community, The Rabbit Room put down roots in a 150-year-old farmhouse in Nashville, Tennessee. The community’s creative ventures now feature a podcast network, bookstore, Rabbit Room Press, and live events including the annual Hutchmoot conference.
Rabbit Room Press publishes works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that embody the mission of The Rabbit Room—cultivating stories that nourish Christ-centered communities for the life of the world. The boutique publishing house endeavors to create books that are beautiful both inside and out, titles not limited to any specific genre or market, but which adhere to a basic belief in the value of creative writing and storytelling.
For further information, visit merlinsisle.com, rabbitroompre
