Lanzelet, one of the first known versions of the Lancelot story, is a critical work in medieval literature. This Middle High German romance is a rendering of a lost French tale of Lancelot that likely predates Chretien de Troyes's famous Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart. Ulrich von Zatzikhoven obtained a copy of the original book in 1194 and translated the work from French into German. Kenneth G.T. Webster made the first English translation in the 1930s, and Columbia University Press published it in 1951. Following Webster's death, the famed Arthurian scholar Roger Sherman Loomis made slight modifications to the text and expanded Webster's notes. Thomas Kerth's new translation, prepared with the highest accuracy and scholarly insight available to date, includes a new introduction and revised bibliography, notes from both Loomis and Webster, and a commentary reflecting the fifty years of scholarship on Lanzelet since the publication of Webster's translation.
