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Thomas
Malory’s Morte Darthur was the last great medieval retelling of
the Arthurian legends which had been so popular throughout Europe in the
Middle Ages. From the late 15th century, Arthur seems to fade into the
background, emerging only occasionally in such works as Spenser’s Faerie
Queene or Dryden’s opera King Arthur.
Also important in the popularization of Arthurian material were the adaptations of Malory for children, illustrated by such great children’s illustrators as Walter Crane, Arthur Rackham, N.C. Wyeth, and Howard Pyle. Finally, there were the responses to Arthurian legend by 19th-century poets, among them Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
This page combines the resources of the Norman Colbeck collection of 19th century material, with those of the Arkley Collection of Historical Children’s Literature, to show the range of forms Arthur took from 1816 to 1917. .