This elegant deluxe edition of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern reader, contains elements of romance, tragedy, love, sex, and honor. The text is beautifully decorated and includes as a bonus the full text of Tolkien's distinguished lecture on Sir Gawain.

Sir Gawain and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author, written around 1400. Sir Gawain is a romantic tale, a fairy tale for adults, full of life and color. However, it is much more than that, as it is simultaneously a powerful moral story that examines religious and social values.

Pearl is evidently an elegy for the death of a child, a poem filled with a sense of great personal loss: but, like Gawain, it is also a complex and moving discussion of much more abstract issues.

Sir Orfeo is a shorter romantic story belonging to an older and different tradition. It was particularly loved by Tolkien.

The three translations capture the full thrills and interconnections of the originals and are accompanied in this special deluxe edition by the full text of Tolkien's 1953 lecture on Sir Gawain.