Nigel Bryant – författare

A dramatisation of Dickens's classic novel, requiring a cast of between 11 and 30. The complex story moves forward quickly with the use of open staging. About the series Heinemann Plays is a well established series offering the best of contemporary drama and a wide range of established classics, in value-for-money hardback versions. The series has been specially developed to support classroom teaching and performance. Within the series there are plays for the full 11-17 age range. The series also contains the best of contemporary writing, and new editions of classic plays. Heinemann Plays are sewn and bound in sturdy hardback covers, guaranteeing longer life. Heinemann Plays are ideal for class reading and performance, many with large casts and an equal mix of parts for boys and girls.

The career of William Marshal, who rose from being the penniless, landless younger son of a middle-ranking nobleman to be regent of England in the minority of Henry III, is one of the most extraordinary stories of the Middle Ages.His biography was completed shortly after his death by a household minstrel and we are fortunate that it survives to give a unique portrait of a twelfth-century knight's life in the early days of tournaments and chivalry as wellas his career in warfare and politics.

First translation of two vivid accounts of French thirteenth-century tournaments, rich in detail and an impassioned defence of tournaments and their importance.The Romance of Le Hem and The Tournament at Chauvency are eyewitness accounts of the famous tournaments held in 1278 at Le Hem on the banks of the Somme in north-eastern France, and in 1285 at Chauvency in Lorraine. Written within weeks of the events they describe, they record in vivid detail not only the jousts and the mêlées but also the entertainments and dramatic interludes which preceded, followed and embellished these festivals of martial sport. As Sarrasin makes clear, theatre as well as jousting, and jousting in the context of enacted stories, were central to what took place at Le Hem, involving elaborate role-play by participants as figures from Arthurian romance. And few medieval accounts of events have such thrilling immediacy as Jacques Bretel's record of Chauvency. He sat in a prime place, on the fourth step of the stand, and the reader sees and hears the action as if sitting at his shoulder - and eavesdrops on conversations, too. He gives remarkable insights into the surprising role played by song, and into how the whole event was perceived and understood.These intriguing works are invaluable source material for scholars not only of medieval chivalry and tournaments but also of festivities and performance.

The Livre Charny (Charny's Book), by the 14th century French knight Geoffroi de Charny, translated here by Nigel Bryant with an introduction by Ian Wilson.The poem known as the Livre Charny (Charny's Book), by the fourteenth-century French knight Geoffroi de Charny, has never been published, Nigel Bryant's brilliant new translation of this long-neglected poem, based on a hitherto overlooked original Charny manuscript housed in Oxford, vividly conveys Charny's self-deprecating and extraordinarily down-to-earth attitudes towards the knightly career.Charny is surprisingly blunt in his descriptions of the mishaps and mortal dangers to be expected, from losing in a tournament, to homesickness on crusade, to being concussed whilst attempting to scale an enemy tower. Nothing else quite like it is to be found in medieval literature. Ian Wilson's introduction provides a markedly revised understanding of Charny's career as tournament performer, serving soldier, crusader, councillor, and finally royal standard-bearer: he was killed at Poitiers in 1356. Bryant and Wilson also argue that Charny's Book is so different in style from the Book of Chivalry, also attributed to him, that the latter is unlikely to be by the same author. Using the evidence of a hitherto unnoticed manuscript in Madrid, they show that the latter is likely to be a work of the 1380s composed by Charny's son of the same name, possibly as a kind of memorial to his heroic father.

First translation of two vivid accounts of French thirteenth-century tournaments, rich in detail and an impassioned defence of tournaments and their importance.The Romance of Le Hem and The Tournament at Chauvency are eyewitness accounts of the famous tournaments held in 1278 at Le Hem on the banks of the Somme in north-eastern France, and in 1285 at Chauvency in Lorraine. Written within weeks of the events they describe, they record in vivid detail not only the jousts and the mêlées but also the entertainments and dramatic interludes which preceded, followed and embellished these festivals of martial sport. As Sarrasin makes clear, theatre as well as jousting, and jousting in the context of enacted stories, were central to what took place at Le Hem, involving elaborate role-play by participants as figures from Arthurian romance. And few medieval accounts of events have such thrilling immediacy as Jacques Bretel's record of Chauvency. He sat in a prime place, on the fourth step of the stand, and the reader sees and hears the action as if sitting at his shoulder - and eavesdrops on conversations, too. He gives remarkable insights into the surprising role played by song, and into how the whole event was perceived and understood.These intriguing works are invaluable source material for scholars not only of medieval chivalry and tournaments but also of festivities and performance.

Constructed from the many and often contradictory Grail legends, here is a single, consistent and accessible narrative for the general reader - now available in paperback.The Grail legends have been appropriated by novelists as diverse as Umberto Eco and Dan Brown yet very few have read for themselves the original stories from which they came. All the mystery and drama of the Arthurian world are embodied in the extraordinary tales of Perceval, Gawain, Lancelot and Galahad in pursuit of the Holy Grail.The original romances, full of bewildering contradictions and composed by a number of different writers, dazzle with the sheer wealth of their conflicting imagination. In Nigel Bryant's hands, this enthralling material becomes truly accessible. He has constructed a single, consistent version of the Grail story in modern English which reasserts its relevance as one of the great and enduring works of literature.NIGEL BRYANT's previous Arthurian books include The High Book of the Grail (Perlesvaus), Chretien de Troyes' Perceval and its Continuations, and Robert de Boron's Merlin and the Grail.

Vivid translation of one of the earliest and most important Grail romances.The High Book of the Grail (Perlesvaus) is one of the most fascinating of medieval Arthurian romances, standing apart from the main tradition represented by the great romance cycles on which Malory based his work. Written in the first half ofthe thirteenth century, it represents a totally different view of the legend of the Holy Grail from that found in Wolfram von Eschenbach or the French Quest of the Holy Grail, though all derive from Chrétien's Perceval; the unknown author adds a much greater religious emphasis, and a desire to glorify crusading chivalry for the secular adventures of Arthur, Perceval, and Lancelot. The framework of the romance is the struggle of Arthur and his knights to impose - by force - the New Law of Christianity in place of the Old Law. Unusually, Arthur's knights are seen collectively as members of a kingdom, rather than as individual knights on quests, defending the land against treason and paganism, and advancing to convert the heathen of other lands. This unique view of the Arthurian world is now made accessible to students of medieval literature, Arthurian enthusiasts, andto historians interested in the world of chivalry and its attitudes.NIGEL BRYANT's previous Arthurian books include The Legend of the Grail, Chretien de Troyes' Perceval and its Continuations, and Robert de Boron's Merlin and the Grail.

Influential medieval romances are translated, with the accompanying music and an absorbing explanatory introduction.The thirteenth century saw the flourishing of a vibrant new literary genre in France: the romance with musical interpolations. The four works translated here are outstanding examples. Their authors incorporate songs in highly inventive ways, not simply for embellishment or atmosphere. They explore the potential of song to advance narrative, create jeopardy, to reveal their characters' inner lives and even to provide ironic comment. Jean Renart, in his Guillaume de Dole, declared himself the originator of the genre. If the innovation was his, it inspired many works that followed. The most notable include the other three in this collection: Le Roman de la Violette (The Romance of the Violet) by Gerbert de Montreuil (almost certainly the Gerbert who wrote arguably the most accomplished Continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval), Le Roman de la Poire (The Romance of the Pear) by Tibaut and Le Dit de la Panthère (The Panther of Love) by Nicole de Margival. Together these works raise absorbing questions about how medieval romances were performed, to the point where Le Roman de la Poire is very nearly a play, understandable only as a piece to be delivered by multiple voices. They will be of great interest not only to literary scholars and musicologists but to all those interested in the performance of romance.All the songs and refrains for which the music has survived are translated into singable form, and all the surviving notations are included in the text, edited by Matthew P. Thomson.