The Romance of Tristan and Iseult

The Authors

Joseph Bédier (1864-1938), born in Paris to a family of Celtic origin, was brought up on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, though he was educated in Paris. He became one of the preeminent French medievalists and literary historians of his time and is best known for his modern French prose translation of the Le roman de Tristan et Iseult, first published in 1900.

Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), Anglo-French historian, essayist, novelist, poet and translator was born at Saint-Cloud, Paris, the son of a French father and an English mother; he spent most of his life in England. He was the author of approximately 150 volumes, and his beautiful rendering into English of Bedier’s The Romance of Tristan and Iseult is, perhaps, the most enduring and beloved of his works.