A substantial introduction traces the Tristan and Isolde legend from the 12th century to 2001, emphasizing literary versions, but also surveying the legend's sources and its appearance in the visual arts, music and film. The nineteen essays are in English, revised, and "classic".

Preface, Norris J. Lacy
Introduction, Joan Tasker Grimbert
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
Tristan: The Celtic and Oriental Material Re-examined, W.J. McCann
Love and the New Patriarchy: Tristan and Isolde, Leslie W. Rabine
How Lovers Lie Together: Infidelity and Fictive Discourse in the Roman de Tristan, E. Jane Burns
The Representation of the Lover's Death: Thomas' Tristan as Open Text, Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner
The Glass Palace in the Folie d'Oxford, Jean-Charles Payen
Tristan the Artist in Gottfried's Poem, W.T.H. Jackson
Gottfried von Strassburg: Tristan and the Arthurian Tradition. William C. McDonald
La Parole amoureuse:Amorous Discourse in the Prose Tristan, Emmanuéle Baumgartner
Radix Amoris: The Travola Ritonda and Its Response to Dante's Paolo and Francesca, Donald L. Hoffman
Malory's Tale of Sir Tristram: Source and Setting Reconsidered, Dhira B. Mahoney
Tristan in Medieval Art, Julia Walworth
Swinburne's Tristram ofLyonesse: Visionary and Courtly Epic, Anthony H. Harrison
That Most Beautiful of Dreams: Tristram and Isoud in British Art of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Christine Poulson
Wagner's Tristan and Isolde: Opera as Symphonic Poem, Joseph Kerman
Wagner and Decadence, Raymond Furness
This Too You Ought to Read: Bédier's Roman de Tristan et Iseut, Edward J. Gallagher
Tristram the Transcendent, Frederic Yves Carpenter
Cocteau's Tristan and Iseut: A Case of Overmuch Respect, Stephen Maddux
Tristan and Isolde in Modern Literature: L'éternal retour, Michael S. Batts

Joan Tasker Grimbert is Professor of French at Catholic University and author of many articles on medieval French literature and Arthurian romance.