Published in French in 1900, Joseph Bédier’s Le Roman de Tristan et Iseut is the great modern reconstruction of the medieval legend of Tristan and Iseult — the doomed love between a Cornish knight and an Irish queen, bound together by a fateful love potion and destroyed by the demands of honour and loyalty. Bédier, a distinguished medieval scholar, synthesised the surviving medieval sources into a single, flowing narrative of haunting beauty.
Note that this edition is in English translation. The original was composed in French. Download this free EPUB from Better Gutenberg for a powerful and accessible version of one of Europe’s foundational love stories.