I thoroughly enjoyed all of the stories about King Arthur and the knights. This is the most in-depth book I have come across on this subject that I have been interested in since I was a teenager. Thank you for sharing all the research and background into the lives of the characters. The book and the binding are just beautiful and a collector's item.5 s Kenneth McIntoshAuthor 92 books41

This book has an audacious title, "The 'Great' Book of King Arthur...and it lives up to its tile. I received my copy as a birthday gift and am thankful for it.

John Matthews (along with his wife Caitlin) is a recognized authority on matters of Anglo-Celtic folklore and mythology; this book is a notable addition to the corpus of his Arthurian writings.

It is definitely a 'coffee table' volume, large, hardbound, with slip cover, high quality paper, and occasional drawings and paintings by John Howe (noted for his work on LOTR books). The physical qualities of the book--even apart from the text--announce "this is something substantial."

Matthews clearly states the nature of this work: it is a collection of Medieval Arthurian tales which were not incorporated by Thomas Mallory into his classic tour-de-force, La Morte De Arthur. Matthews set out to write a sort of parallel to Mallory's tome, grouping various Arthurian legends from different lands into a chronological order so as to form one grand tale, and editing them for continuity.

I chose four stars for the review due to a minor setback that is no discredit to the author: Medieval romances tend to be formula- written. Every castle is "the most magnificent ever seen," every maiden is "the most beautiful woman on earth, modest and politely spoken," and every good knight, "the noblest, most courageous ever known." This routine use of hyperbole becomes laughable after a while. Also part of the genre, every conflict between two males is settled by a joust, and the lengthier tales begin to feel a replay of splintered lances and unhorsings. Again, this is not John Matthews' fault--he stays true to his source material. It would seem inauthentic if he cut out these Medieval conventions.

Fortunately, there is enough variety in these tales that the book transcends the limitations of its sources. Matthews has paid considerable attention to the Faerie realm, and the enchantments and tricks perpetrated by these denizens of the invisible world literally add charm to the stories. The faerie element is also a reminder that at the height of Christendom the more-ancient Pagan tales of the Sidhe were still a strong element of Europeans' world view. Celtic tales such as The Adventures of Meriadoc, The Visit of the Grey-Hammed Lady, and Sir Gawain and the Crop-Eared Dog, and Guingamor and Guerrehes ,read more the serendipitous tales of the Mabinogeon than standard courtly tales of chivalry.

John Matthews has also selected tales which remind us that the Medieval mentality was not limited to white male perspectives. The tale of Sir Lanvil is written by a twelth-century woman. The Adventures of Melora and Orlando is so good that this one story alone would merit purchasing the entire volume. King Arthur's daughter Melora is a warrior woman who outfights and outwits a succession of male opponents to rescue her lover Orlando. It's a fun tale with strong magical and Celtic elements. The Tale of Morien features a Black Muslim knight; although characters in the story are frightened by the color of his skin, he is a sympathetic hero.

Counteracting the hyperbole and repetition of motifs in Medieval legends, the Medieval mind was full of whimsy, and this is evident in surprising elements throughout the tales. Who knew that King Arthur took counsel from a talking parrot? Or that a fair maiden, protecting her injured knight from a serpent, had her nipple bitten off and subsequently restored that with a replacement made of gold? In the best of these tales there are moments when one can imagine a bard telling the story whilst winking at his laughing audience.

After all these tales of combat, love, and some ribaldry, the book ends on a higher tone, with familiar but still powerful elements of the hero's journey at its conclusion. The Adventures of Sone de Nansay is a weighty retelling of the Grail Quest, and The Voyage to Avalon is a unique first-person recounting of Arthur's once-and-future continued existence.

Lovers of Medieval and Arthurian literature will want to have this book in their collection.3 s Terence1,193 435

The Great Book of King Arthur collects the Arthurian tales that Mallory left out of Le Morte d’Arthur. Many are legends from the pre-Lancelot era when Gawain was Arthur’s premier knight.

For anyone in love with the Matter of Britain, Matthews has put together a thoroughly enjoyable collection, and Gareth Anderson does a fine job narrating it in the audiobook version. Recommended.
arthuriana audio-books mythologies2 s Julia1,065 36

In college (a long time ago) I took a course on Arthurian literature which compared how the King Arthur story was interpreted in different historical periods. This reminded me of that discussion. This book contains a number of short stories from the medieval period with commentary at the end by the author/editor about where they came from and how he chose or re-wrote them.

It is a beautiful hardcover book with several color illustrations and would make a great addition to a library of Arthuriana.

Unfortunately, I found the main section which tells various stories of different knights to be rather repetitive and not all that interesting after a while. This is more due to my comfort level as a reader of novels written in the 20th and 21st century, and not because of issues of how these stories were written for their audiences.
The bulk of the stories follow different knights who all seek adventures, find beautiful women, fight other knights, make friends with the knights that they have defeated, retrieve stolen treasures, and return to King Arthur's court to tell their stories.
The adventures and quests are much of a muchness. There is no character development and, except for Sir Kay who is rude, there is little to distinguish the different knights. Guinevere is mentioned as Arthur's wife but plays no real role in the stories.
Because of John Matthews' intent to use stories that were not already used in Malory's "Morte D'Arthur" the book does not include the Lancelot/Guinevere story and only touches on Mordred in passing, despite a brief section on Arthur's death/return to Avalon.

I would recommend this for completists, but not as a good starting place for reading about King Arthur and the Round Table.

3.5 stars, rounded down.arthurian fantasy first-read-in-2023 Joseph R.1,111 17

A great admirer of Sir Thomas Mallory's Morte de Arthur, John Matthews has done vast research into the legends and tales of King Arthur. This book presents tales not told by Mallory but in a style that is both similar to Mallory and references the previous author frequently. These "new" tales tell various adventures and histories of Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table. One section focuses on the famous Grail Quest and the book ends with Arthur's death and what happened to him when he departed for Avalon.

The stories have a medieval tone that's fun to read (it doesn't have medieval spelling or grammatical usage, so it is readable). The sense of wonder is complemented by the frankness of the text. For every reference to Camelot the Golden (King Arthur's court), there's plenty of very human behavior by the knights. They live by the code of chivalry but sometimes are bewitched by beguiling women or, more often, get into fights with any wandering knight who happens to look tough enough to present a worthy challenge. Some battles are with mythic beasts dragons or shape-shifted people whose outer appearance does not match their inner disposition. The adventures are a lot of fun, though the knights often get overly friendly with the ladies they meet.

The illustrations by John Howe (who worked with Alan Lee on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies) are delightful but not too frequent. The average is one or two illustrations per story. With thirty-two stories, that's plenty to enjoy along with the text.

Recommended, highly for King Arthur fans, though its not for the youngest fans. Michael McGrath145 3

Some of the stories seem more "miss" than "hit" for me, and though they are here to fill in some gaps to Malory's book, there are only a few that are worthy, starting with the whole coming of Merlin and the dragons. I always thought Le Morte D'Arthur could have benefitted from such a tale told retrospectively many of the Grail narratives. Another notable narrative is that of Sir Palomides, the Saracen knight, and that of Marrock, cursed to be a werewolf (which is mentioned in passing in Malory in the Tale of the Healing of Urge). I found the story about Melora, a daughter of Arthur, drawn from Irish sources to be intriguing at first, but most tales they meander almost pointlessly into magical realms and more often than not, I found myself looking to see how much further I had to go (not a good sign).

Having said this, the whole Gawain section is cohesive and the best part of the entire volume. I believe the author should do an entire Gawain compendium, for he gives far more justice than Malory does, and this only heightens his duel with Lancelot later on.

I might have given this a higher rating, but the new-age illustrations and glossy pages do little justice to the Arthurian legend. I think ia ctaully prefer the Pre-Raphaelite embellishments over this by far.

Tastes changes, and horses for courses. Some may have enjoyed this far more than did I. So be it.

Bruce Harpham432 8

An interesting collection of lesser known Arthurian legends and stories. The book is conceived as a kind of spiritual sequel to Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur. Unfortunately, I have not yet read Mallory so some of the references in this book were lost on me. If I had read Mallory's book first, this probably would have been 5 stars.

The book is illustrated wonderfully by John Howe, who I know as an illustrator of Tolkien's work. I also enjoyed the very detailed bibliographical section at the end (20+ pages of notes). The author has provided a detailed description of where he drew inspiration from every tale. For example, the concluding story of the book is drawn from a Catalan source!

Best understood as an anthology of stories, this book is best read slowly over time. Reading a story or two a day is ly the best approach. Some of the stories - especially those involving Merlin, magic and the mystical - were among my favorite. I loved the 'book of Merlin' opening stories. I also quite enjoyed the Grail quest stories (though I felt this section was rather too short).

I'm already looking forward to reading my next Arthurian inspired work - book 2 of the Warlord Chronicles.arthurian british fantasy ...more Carly315 4 Shelved as 'dnf-pick-up-again-later'

Okay, so this is delightful. The illustrations by John Howe (famous for his illustrations for LOTR) are gorgeous, and I enjoy that this is a collection of stories out of the real Arthur canon, that haven't been put together in a book yet before. This book is intended to be a companion to the Thomas Mallory Mort d'Arthur, and I think it does a great job.

That said, there are two reasons why I'm DNF'ing this book. One is the size-the thing is physically massive, making it heavy to hold and weighty to carry around; this is definitely coffee-table-book sized. The other is that it is a little repetitive and archaic-there's nothing wrong with that! It is just that I am not quite in the mood for that kind of reading right now. I'm not good at DNF'ing books, so it kind of pains me to do so with this one, but I do plan on coming back to it in the future, when maybe I'll be more in the mood for these stories of chivalry and adventure.classics fantasy fiction ...more Kimberly Jones63 2

I love this book! The stories are engrossing and well written. This was my first exposure to King Arthur type literature. Inspired me to get a copy of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. I especially appreciated the synopsis of each story in the back explaining where the author found the original story and how it fits into the Arthurian tradition. Well done!! Samantha Houston122 7

A gorgeous edition of the lesser known tales of Malory. Texts included stories of Arthur's daughter, female knights, and the story of Merrick, whose name I have always loved!
Beautiful illustrations to accompany the prose! A must-have for any Arthurian shelf!my-favoriet-arthurian-books Glyn Hnutu-healh2 3

What a wonderfully written book! It rivals Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur! This book is simply a delight to read and re-read! Debra Waites152 1 follower

Autor del comentario:
=================================