Editing Perceforest (section)

==Reception at various points in history==
According to the ''Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales'', "it was read in France, and in northern Germany was performed as a pre-Lenten [[Shrove Tuesday]] drama in the mid-1400s." [[Charles IX of France]] was especially fond of this romance: four volumes of ''Perceforest'' were added to the Royal library at [[Blois]] sometime between 1518 and 1544, and were shelved with the Arthurian romances.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Salda |first=Michael N. |title=8ch3 |url=http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol8/8ch3.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001026044045/http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol8/8ch3.html |archive-date=October 26, 2000 |access-date=2005-01-31}}</ref> The romance was known and referred to in 14th-century England.

''Perceforest'', like other late chivalric romances, was vaguely remembered but largely unread until the late 20th century. This was due not only to its time period but to its length. Each of its six books runs as many pages as a long novel, and the whole work is divided into about 530 chapters, totalling over a million words.<ref>Nigel Bryant (translator), ''Perceforest: The Prehistory of King Arthur's Britain'', Cambridge and Rochester: D.S. Brewer (Arthurian studies, 77), 2011, xxiii.</ref> If completely translated into English the work would run about 7,000 pages.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lacy |first=Norris |date=November 2004 |title=Arthurian Legends |url=http://www.ampltd.co.uk/digital_guides/arthurian_legends/Editorial-Introduction.aspx |access-date=2019-06-18 |website=www.ampltd.co.uk}}</ref> Therefore, it was earlier and [[High Middle Ages|High Medieval]] literature that took centre stage in modern medieval studies.

Moreover, readers of the [[Age of Enlightenment]] were not always delighted with ''Perceforest'' when they came upon it. The hero of [[Matthew Lewis (writer)|Matthew Lewis]]'s ''[[The Monk]]'' (1796),<ref>Matthew Lewis, ''The Monk'', Vol. II, Chapter 1.</ref> an early example of the [[Gothic novel]], confesses that
:"Donna Rodolpha's Library was principally composed of old Spanish Romances: these were her favourite studies, and once a day one of these unmerciful volumes was put regularly into my hands. I read the wearisome adventures of ''Perceforest'', ''[[Tirant lo Blanch|Tirante the White]]'', ''[[Francisco de Moraes|Palmerin of England]]'' and ''The Knight of the Sun'' till the Book was on the point of falling from my hands through Ennui."

[[Gérard de Nerval]], in a fictional letter published as part of his ''Angélique'' (1850), tells of an antiquary who fears for the safety of the valuable first printed edition of ''Perceforest'' at the hands of a rioting mob.