British Author Challenge November 2022: Arthurian Legend

Monty Python and the Holy Grail {film} (1975)

We did Folklore, Fables, and Legends in 2018, but this month's theme narrows that down to Arthurian legend. The earliest mentions of King Arthur date back over a thousand years, and he and his knights have appeared regularly in literature ever since. Read anything from Nennius's Historia Brittonum to the latest issue of Kieron Gillen's Once and Future, as long as it features some aspect of Arthurian legend.

Wikipedia bibliography of King Arthur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_King_Arthur
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Porius by John Cowper Powys
The Arthurian Merlin Saga by Mary Stewart
The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson
The Mabinogion
Camulod Chronicles series by Jack Whyte
The Warlord Chronicles series by Bernard Cornwell
King Arthur Trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Alliterative Morte Arthur
Once & Future comic series by Kieron Gillen
The Fall of Arthur by J. R. R. Tolkien
Merlin by Robert Nye
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Table of Less Valued Knights by Marie Phillips
The Merlin Codex series by Robert Holdstock
The Pendragon by Catherine Christian
Tristan and Iseult by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
Pendragon's Banner series by Helen Hollick
Guenevere series by Rosalind Miles
The Arthurian Tales series by Giles Kristian
Arthur trilogy by Kevin Crossley-Holland
Malory's Knights of Albion series
Sir Gawain series by Selina Hastings
Ywain and Gawain
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Book)
The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
The Stolen Lake by Joan Aiken

Five Stars all ready in October for Gustave Dore Remastered Idylls of the King!

>2 m.belljackson: Tennyson sets my teeth on edge, but I bet Dore's illustrations are exquisite.

>3 amanda4242: It is definitely Dore's illustrations that draw (yank?) readers through The Idylls,

yet I'm still wild about The Charge of the Light Brigade - the rhythm! the Hell! the Honour!

>4 m.belljackson: yet I'm still wild about The Charge of the Light Brigade - the rhythm! the Hell!

The fact that it's not novel length!

I don't mind "The Charge of the Light Brigade," but I can never read it without thinking of Flashman at the Charge.

>3 amanda4242: The opening of Idylls of the King tells a really fine and mysterious story - it's the rest that falters away.

How about Prince Valiant by Hal Foster? He's one of the knights under King Arthur. Arthur does make an appearance in the stories.

>7 fuzzi: Looks like Foster was Canadian-American, so nope.

I plan to read The Buried Giant and then maybe tackle one of the series such as Mary Stewart with The Crystal Cave.

eta: I might have a go at John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights also

TH White for me this coming month.

I read the graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Chivalry earlier this year. Colleen Doran's illustrations make the story of a widow who buys the holy grail in a charity shop look like an illuminated manuscript. Strongly recommended.

I may tackle The Once and Future King; I've read the first three parts in the original novel versions, but I've never gotten through the compilation.

>8 amanda4242: argh. Oh well.

>12 fuzzi: Annoying, isn't it? I recently picked up an anthology of Arthurian stories and discovered not a single one of the authors was British!

>13 amanda4242: agreed. I am concentrating my reading this year on books I own, and I have unread Prince Valiant books on my shelves. Sigh.

The 2023 planning thread is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#

Once & Future Vols. 1-5 by Kieron Gillen

A group of British nationalists awaken King Arthur to "cleanse" the country. Only trouble is, to the sixth century warlord it's the Saxons who are the foreign invaders who need to be removed.

This is an Arthurian story like none I have ever read. Gillen has a lot to say about national identity and the stories we tell ourselves. It's dark, violent, but ultimately, I believe, hopeful. Dan Mora's art is really good, and colorist Tamra Bonvillain gives an otherworldly quality to the books. Highly recommended.

>16 amanda4242: I read the first volume of Once & Future, and agree wholeheartedly with your review. I CAN'T WAIT to get the other volumes (though I must, because other people are ahead of me in the library queue). Thanks for your recommendation!

Karen O.

>17 klobrien2: The whole series is available on Scribd; they have a free 30 day trial for new members.

>18 amanda4242: Thanks for the link! I will check it out, but it sounds like a great deal.

Karen O.

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

I cannot write about this book intelligently. It has bypassed my brain and lodged itself deep within my heart. It is not perfect, but I write this with tears streaming down my face.

>4 m.belljackson: Absolutely The Charge of the Light Brigade!

>20 amanda4242: ❤️ Though, for me, it's The Sword in the Stone that's the most poignant, with the promise of the dream.

>21 humouress: Yes, all that beautiful hope of the first book. And then White destroys us in the last chapter of The Candle in the Wind.

The latest Humble Bundle is the Neil Gaiman Dark Horse Collection, and includes the gorgeous Chivalry.

The Neil Gaiman Dark Horse Collection bundle

I’ve read a great deal in this category. Most recently, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which I truly enjoyed. I also have read The Buried Giant and have to admit that I did not recall that this was about King Arthur. I’ve read The Crystal Cave. I like Mary Stewart’s writing. I’ve read The Once and Future King - I prefer the parts about Merlin. I’ve read H is For Hawk which is about T. H. White. And I read The Dark is Rising and I highly recommend them. Good youth books imo.

>24 Kristelh: I love Sir Gawain and enjoyed The Crystal Cave. I...am less fond of The Dark is Rising Sequence.

Just a reminder that I'm going to start finalizing the 2023 selections soon, so don't forget to pop over to the planning thread and voice your opinions.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/345635#

>24 Kristelh: A post Arthur Sir Gawain appears in The Buried Giant. I began to believe that Axl and Beatrice were Lancelot and Guinevere (or even Arthur and Guinevere). A & B have lost most of their memory but Gawain says ( I think) that Axl used to be a knight with him until he did something bad. Others remember Axl too. I did not read to the end, and also skipped chunks, as I thought the book was rather poor.

Thought I'd share some links.

BBC Radio dramatization of The Once and Future King
https://archive.org/details/the-once-and-future-king

Arthurian episodes from one of my favorite podcasts
https://www.mythpodcast.com/tag/king-arthur/page/4/

The best breakdown of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight I've ever seen. (Be sure to read the comments. The Toast had the best comments.)
https://the-toast.net/2015/06/03/sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight/

The December thread is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/346166

Nicola Griffith's Spear is on sale for $2.99 today.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight & Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady by Selina Hastings, illustrated by Juan Wijngaard

Hastings does an excellent job re-telling these two legends as children's stories, but it's Wijngaard's illustrations that are the true stars.

The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White

White had originally planned for five books in The Once and Future King, but wartime paper shortages prevented him from revising the fifth book; by the time the war ended he revised the entire series and stuck the best parts of book five into the first book.

The Book of Merlyn sees the wizard visiting Arthur once more on the night before the final battle with Mordred. Merlyn whisks the king off to a council of their old animal friends and they spend the night condemning humanity as nasty and brutish. This is White at his most pessimistic and misanthropic, which is understandable since he was writing during WWII. Merlyn is an interesting look at what might have been, but since the best parts, Arthur's transformations into an ant and a goose, were included in the revised version The Sword in the Stone, it's not a must read.