The original Book of the Grail was written early in the 13th century, but only fragments of the manuscript survive. Originally titled The High History of the Holy Graal, this book was compiled in 1866 from a 16th-century copy of the original that was written in French by an anonymous author. This is the most complete version of the Grail story and is an essential addition to the library of anyone who is interested in this most enduring of legends about Perceval de Gallois and his sacred quest. Here is the most popular of all the ancient romance legends of the hero-king Arthur, the knights of the Round Table, the mysterious coming of the Holy Grail, the crown of thorns, the king who is a fisher of men (the fisher king), the reputed visit of Joseph of Arimathea (the Jerusalem tin-merchant whose tomb in that city was used by Jesus after his crucifixion), to the English town of Glastonbury. Is this book an allegory for the sacred blood lineage of Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth? A rare and important book.

First translated into English by our country's third president, this is the Bible of Gnostic Christianity, the original source for the legends of the Holy Grail, Freemasonry, even of the Mormon Church. Its text contains the most attacked and suppressed alternative gospel of the life of Jesus, and the book disputes accounts in the traditionally accepted gospels regarding what Jesus' mission on Earth really was, what Jesus taught, and how Jesus died.

Vivid translation of one of the earliest and most important Grail romances.

The original story of Sir Perceval and the Holy Grail, whole and incorrupt as it left the hands of its first author. translated in 1898 by Sebastian Evans from a 13th century manuscript written in Old French by an unknown author, the work concludes with the claim that: "The Latin from whence this history was drawn into Romance was taken in the Isle of Avalon, in a holy house of religion that stands at the head of the Moors Adventurous, there where King Arthur and Queen Guinevere lie, according to the witness of the good men religious that are therein, that have the whole history thereof, true from the beginning even to the end."

Recent works of fiction and popular history have promoted the idea that the Holy Grail symbolizes a physical bloodline resulting from the union of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. This, supposedly, is the 'secret' that esoteric movements have kept tirelessly for the past 2,000 years. From her groundbreaking research, Sylvia Francke exposes this notion to be a blatant misinterpretation of the mystery traditions that preceded and ran parallel to the birth of Christianity. She traces the ancient spiritual paths of knowledge from the Cathars, the Knights Templar and the enigmatic Rosicrucians, to the work of Rudolf Steiner in the twentieth century. Here, she concludes, is true Grail knowledge: the Tree of Life and the Holy Grail itself explained in their metaphysical context. From her research she suggests a solution to the riddle of the sudden wealth and strange behaviour of Bérenger Saunière, the mysterious priest of Rennes-le-Château in southern France. True Grail knowledge, she concludes, has nothing to do with bloodlines or worldly status, but is an ancient lifeline to the spiritual origins of creation. Its energetic forces ray up from the earth and down from the constellations and planets while interacting with individual human beings. It holds the key to the fulfilment of mankind's quest, a step to the next phase of human evolution... The recent explosion of interest in an alternative history of Christianity - the shadow Grail - prompted Sylvia Francke to revise The Tree of Life and the Holy Grail, first published in 1996. The result is a completely reworked and expanded book that constitutes a powerful and convincing refutation of distorted esoteric truths.

Some fifty years before Chrétien de Troyes wrote what is probably the first and certainly the most influential story of the Holy Grail, images of the Virgin Mary with a simple but radiant bowl (called a “grail” in local dialect) appeared in churches in the Spanish Pyrenees. In this fascinating book, Joseph Goering explores the links between these sacred images and the origins of one of the West’s most enduring legends. While tracing the early history of the grail, Goering looks back to the Pyrenean religious paintings and argues that they were the original inspiration of the grail legend. He explains how storytellers in northern France could have learned of these paintings and how the enigmatic “grail” in the hands of the Virgin came to form the centerpiece of a story about a knight in King Arthur’s court. Part of the allure of the grail, Goering argues, was that neither Chrétien nor his audience knew exactly what it represented or why it was so important. And out of the attempts to answer those questions the literature of the Holy Grail was born.