Retellings of Malory
A consequence of the Arthurian Revival in the nineteenth century was the publication of numerous retellings of the Arthurian stories, most of them directed at boys. In his 1817 edition of Malory’s Morte, British Poet Laureate Robert Southey wrote that, were the Morte to be modernized and “published as a book for boys, it could hardly fail of regaining its popularity.” A number of writers responded to Southey’s call, first among them James T. Knowles, who reworked the tales in his The Story of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (1862), which retold Malory with inspiration from Tennyson, to whom the book was dedicated.
The popularity of Knowles’ book and the demand created by youth groups for versions of Arthurian stories led, in turn, to other popular retellings, such as Sidney Lanier’s The Boy’s King Arthur. First published in 1880 with illustrations by Alfred Kappes, it was reprinted in 1917 with color illustrations by N. C. Wyeth—a version that is still in print and widely read today. Novelist Walker Percy recalled being influenced in the writing of his Lancelot (1977) by Wyeth’s “great picture of Lancelot and Turquine.”
Wyeth’s mentor Howard Pyle, now considered “The Father of American Illustration,” wrote and illustrated four books retelling the tales of Camelot; these too are still printed and read. And while Arthurian tales are often thought of as stories for boys, The Girl’s King Arthur (2010) by Barbara Tepa Lupack counters this notion with the very title of her book, which retells the stories from female perspectives.
Alfred Kappes, illustrator. The Boy’s King Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory’s History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (1880). Edited with an introduction by Sidney Lanier.
N.C. Wyeth, illustrator. The Boy’s King Arthur: Being Sir Thomas Malory’s History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. Edited by Sidney Lanier. (Reprinted 1945.)
J[ames] T. K[nowles]. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. (1862). Illustrated by G. H. Thomas.
Walker Percy. Letter to Alan Lupack, dated February 14, 1987, in which Percy, author of the novel Lancelot, explains how deeply he was influenced by Wyeth’s “great picture of Lancelot and Turquine” in The Boy’s King Arthur.
Howard Pyle. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (1903).
Illustration by Howard Pyle. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (1903).
Shirley Temple with a copy of the Lanier Boy's King Arthur with Wyeth illustrations.
Barbara Tepa Lupack. The Girl’s King Arthur: Tales of the Women of Camelot (2010). Illustrated by Ian Brown.
Born in Yorkshire, England, in 1962, Ian Brown is a predominantly self-taught artist and illustrator. Fascinated from an early age with mythology, folklore, and, in particular, the Arthurian legends— and long inspired by such artists as Gustave Doré, Arthur Rackham, and the Pre-Raphaelites—he has illustrated and written for several magazines, journals, and books. His own art expresses light, movement, and emotion, with the latter being more subtly expressed in his black-and-white ink illustrations and more overtly conveyed through color in larger works.
"Dame Ragnell" from The Girl’s King Arthur.