King Arthur Collection

by Thomas Malory, Alfred Tennyson, Maude Radford Warren

The Once and Future King

The legends of King Arthur have permeated our culture. Who hasn't heard of the Round Table, Camelot, or Excalibur? Queen Guinevere, Lancelot, or Merlin? These larger-than-life figures have grown from their historical roots to mythological status. Now you can read for yourself the origins and development of the myths as collected through the ages.

Highlights of The King Arthur Collection are:
Six classic texts of Arthurian lore, from the definitive Le Morte d'Arthur to more accessible overviews like King Arthur and His Knights by Maude Radford Warren, each elegantly formatted for ease of use and enjoyment on your e-reader device.  Links to free, full-length audio recordings of all the books in this collection.  An individual, active Table of Contents for each book accessible from the Kindle "go to" feature.  Perfect formatting in rich text compatible with Kindle's Text-to-Speech features.  Six Complete Works 

Six classic and historic texts, complete and unabridged. Books included:
Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, the best-known compilation of Arthurian lore  Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a poetic retelling of the Arthurian cycle  King Arthur and His Knights by Maude Radford Warren, a version of the story for children and families  King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Sir James Knowles, another popular retelling for the general reader  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a knightly legend related to the Arthur stories  A Connecticut in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain  Exploring Camelot 

Also included are special features for any Arthurian including:
The Real King Arthur: an overview of the historical basis for the Once and Future King  A comprehensive list of the many film, television, and media adaptations of the legends of King Arthur.  Links to free, full-length audio recordings of the books and stories in this collection.

Genres: Classics, Fantasy, Mythology, Historical Fiction, Arthurian, Fiction, Speculative Fiction

1953 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 16, 2014

About the author

From French sources, Sir Thomas Malory, English writer in floruit in 1470, adapted Le Morte d'Arthur , a collection of romances, which William Caxton published in 1485.

From original tales such as the Vulgate Cycle , Sir Thomas Malory, an imprisoned knight in the fifteenth century, meanwhile compiled and translated the tales, which we know as the legend of king.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...

Reviews

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this one on and off for about a year and a half. It's long, but worth reading. There are six separate works included, as well as some background information about the historicity of Arthur and a list of adaptations of the legend. It begins with Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, in many ways the definitive version of the Arthurian saga. Adapted from both British and French sources, it brings together the various stories of Arthur and his court into one long narrative. It takes up more than half the book, and gets repetitive sometimes, as there are endless accounts of jousts and such. Malory wrote in the late fifteenth century, and this version keeps many archaic expressions, but modernizes the spelling. Tying together all this material obviously shows some seams, and not just several stories that are basically the same. During the search for the Holy Grail, there's quite a bit about Lancelot having to do penance for messing around with Guinevere, but after this he goes right back to the affair. Not that backsliding like that isn't possible (especially as Guinevere is often shown as making him feel guilty for NOT having sex with her), but I thought it detracted a bit from the theme. Still, there was a lot to work with there, so it's not like I can really blame Malory. I looked up the author online, and while it's not entirely clear who it was (there were several Sir Thomas Malorys active around that time), the most likely candidate was a career criminal who wrote the book while in prison. It was the editor who gave the title Le Morte d'Arthur to the whole thing, when Malory only used it for the last part. It's kind of weird, as it draws so much attention to Arthur's death, when his whole adult life is chronicled. The second book is Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, a collection of twelve poems from the late nineteenth century, adapted largely but not entirely from Malory. There's a stronger sense of narrative in these retellings, but it's nowhere near as complete. Maude Radford Warren's King Arthur and His Knights serves as a sort of Cliff's Notes for the first two books, presenting the same stories in modern language, with the intent that children could read them or have them read to them. There's also an emphasis placed on how Arthur was considered the champion of the people. The stories Warren retells are all treated as largely separate. Sir James Knowles's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is another more modern take for a general audience, but I didn't notice anything that particularly stood out about it. The version of Gawayne and the Green Knight doesn't credit an author, but it's by Charlton Miner Lewis, who writes it in verse with a lot of humorous asides, and some added fairy tale elements. The last book included here is Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, another largely jokey take on the material, but since I've already read that one I didn't bother to do so again.

[Z · Rating 1 out of 5]

I know I am contractually obligated to love any collection that includes Le Morte d'Arthur and Idylls of the King (among other favorite titles), but hear me out.


All the books in this collection are presented in the barest form possible. There are no notes, no introductions, no preludes or postludes, no illustrations ... nothing at all. In some of these cases the omissions seem strange or sloppy, as though someone copied and pasted directly the versions of these books that are freely available on the internet, but was conservative in guessing at which parts of the books are public domain. For example Le Morte doesn't include Caxton's introduction, but it is obviously the Caxton version and the very last words are "Caxton me fieri fecit."

Also, like I said, there are no illustrations, even though a few of these titles have always had illustrations and were always meant to be illustrated works. I guess that's because you can sell words from the public domain, but it's trickier trying to sell someone's art without permission, even if it's old?

All of this, the generally cheap editing and presentation, and a few other minor complaints would probably have earned this collection two stars and my criticism, but there are two more specific final complaints that make me regard it as irredeemable trash.

First, one of the included titles is supposed to be Gawain and the Green Knight, by the anonymous Gawain Poet (and is attributed as such), but what is included is in fact Gawayne and the Green Knight: a Fairy Tale by Charlton Lewis. Mr Lewis is not credited, and this book says the author is Anonymous, but the two works are not at all similar apart from the title, you can tell that this is Gawayne and not Gawain from the first sentence. Whoever put this together was indiscriminately copying from Project Gutenberg or somesuch, and they didn't even have enough familiarity with the subjects to understand what they were taking.

Finally, as a parting insult to their readers, Maplewood Books has included as a last section a write-up of various theories of a historical Arthur and Arthurian portrayals in various media. This is about as bad as could be imagined, maybe even worse. It's pretty much just straight up Google results, including--I kid you not--whole paragraphs lifted unaltered from Wikipedia pages. This section in particular (but honestly the whole book) feels like a lazy highschooler's book report thrown together at the last minute using CnP plagiarism. I'm honestly surprised it's a real book that you can spend money on, and I'm incredibly grateful I didn't.

[Greg Kerestan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The adventures of King Arthur are well known by name, but not by content. Many people can describe the Sword in the Stone, the creation of the Round Table, something about a holy grail, and MAYBE Lancelot stealing away Guinevere, but beyond that, the legendary deeds of Arthur and his Knights are vague. People will name Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin, Lancelot, the Lady of the Lake, but not usually go much deeper. This extraordinarily comprehensive volume unites all the great canonical works about King Arthur, from Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" that established the legends in their protean form as a single narrative, to Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," which unites the elements and main characters in a more cohesive novelistic format (albeit in poetry). Collections of Arthur stories for children, a Mark Twain parody, and a pleasantly light translation of the "Gawaine and the Green Knight" poem round out the collection. Though it's a bit much for one sitting or one month's reading, if you're interested in Arthuriana, this is the only book you need.

[David E. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good collection of books on King Arthur.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing better than a trip through some great classic literature back to Camelot, knights in shining armor, jousts, adventures and so much more.

[Sole Benc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solo me he leído el primero.

[Jill Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of Arthurian Literature. A must have for anyone who loves the legends of King Arthur

[Fred Leland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great entertaining book!