King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table

The edition includes a cycle of the most famous legends about the British King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, as presented by two 19th-century literators — James Knowles and Henry Gilbert. The book was first published in 1860 and has been reissued multiple times since then. The text is given in the translation of Edward Andreevich Granstrem. The book is decorated with illustrations by several artists: Walter Crane, Lancelot Speed, Ekaterina Grave, and William Russell Flint.
For the British, King Arthur, the wizard Merlin, the beautiful Guinevere, the Knights of the Round Table, and other heroes of the so-called Arthurian cycle of legends are as significant and important as their famous epic heroes are for Russians. Arthur is the central hero of British epic. He is a legendary leader of the Britons, about the possible real prototype of whom historians still argue. Mentions of King Arthur appear in Welsh legends of the 5th-6th centuries AD. The first literary records of this folklore date back to the Middle Ages. The deeds of the valiant knight were written about in the 12th century in French by authors of courtly romances, such as Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach. They likely invented most of the heroes who surround Arthur. In any case, these characters were not mentioned anywhere before. In the second third of the 15th century, the English writer Thomas Malory gathered all the existing legends, tales, and French-written romances about Arthur and his knights into one. Having processed the material, he published the book "The Death of Arthur" in 1485, which became a kind of encyclopedia of the Arthurian myth for subsequent generations. Special interest in it arose during the Victorian era. The plots presented in "The Death of Arthur" were repeatedly addressed by Pre-Raphaelite artists. Aubrey Beardsley illustrated this cycle. Malory wrote in late Middle English. In modern English, the stories about King Arthur that he compiled were presented in 1860 by literator James Knowles. Following in his father's footsteps, he received an architectural education and even managed to work in this field, designing several mansions. However, his passion for literature prevailed, and Knowles directed the literary magazine "The Nineteenth Century" that he created for many years. The next step in popularizing the image of Arthur and the associated heroes was made by the English writer Henry Gilbert. By age, he could have been Knowles's son. Gilbert primarily wrote for a children's audience. His books about pirates or the conquest of Mexico are still published today. After his literary-style processing of the legends about Arthur, stories of his deeds became available to the broadest audience. In this edition, the cycle of the most well-known legends about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is adorned with illustrations by three British artists who lived at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Walter Crane was a representative of Art Nouveau, Lancelot Speed was celebrated as a wonderful illustrator of Victorian era books, and William Russell Flint was a recognized master of watercolor.