Jacob Hammer's 1951 edition of the variant tradition was to have been followed by a scholarly edition of the main tradition, but Hammer died before he could complete the work. Acton Griscom's text, also appearing in 1929, surveyed most of the then-known manuscripts and made some use of three, but his base text was corrupt. Edmond Faral's 1929 attempt was frankly and modestly a reader's edition, with a variable and sometimes confusing apparatus. The first modern editions all had limitations. The Historia survives in well over 200 manuscripts, and an editor must also contend with the variant traditions, and with the separate tradition for the Prophetie Merlini section of the text. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum britannie is indisputably a foundational document of the whole Arthurian tradition, yet paradoxically, it is this very importance that has presented would-be editors with an almost insurmountable task.
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