King Arthur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians.[2] The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.[3] Arthur is a central figure in the legends making up the Matter of Britain. The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).[4] In some Welsh and Breton tales and poems that date from before this work, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh otherworld Annwn.[5] How much of Geoffrey's Historia (completed in 1138) was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown.

As the principal narrative poem of nineteenth-century England, Tennyson's Idylls of the King is an ambitious and widely influential reworking of the Arthurian legends of the Middle Ages, which have provided a great body of myth and symbol to writers, painters, and composers for the past hundred years. Tennyson's treatment of these legends is now valued as a deeply significant oblique commentary on cultural decadence and the precarious balance of civilization. Drawing upon published and unpublished materials, Tennyson's Camelot studies the Idylls of the King from the perspective of all its medieval sources. In noting the Arthurian literature Tennyson knew and paying special attention to the works that became central to his Arthurian creation, the volume reveals the poet's immense knowledge of the medieval legends and his varied approaches to his sources. The author follows the chronology of composition of the Idylls, allowing the reader to see Tennyson's evolving conception of his poem and his changing attitudes to the medieval accounts. The Idylls of the King stands, ultimately, as the poet's own Camelot, his legacy to his generation, an indictment of his society through a vindication of his idealism.

According to one of Julia Margaret Cameron’s great-nieces, “we never knew what Aunt Julia was going to do next, nor did anyone else.” This is an accurate summation of the life of the British photographer (1815–1879), who took up the camera at age forty-eight and made more than twelve hundred images during a fourteen-year career. Living at the height of the Victorian era, Cameron was anything but conventional, experimenting with the relatively new medium of photography, promoting her own art though exhibition and sale, and pursuing the eminent personalities of her age—Alfred Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Thomas Carlyle, and others—as subjects for her lens. For the first time, all known images by Cameron, one of the most important nineteenth-century artists in any medium, are gathered together in a catalogue raisonné. In addition to a complete catalogue of Cameron’s photographs, there is information on her life and times, initial experiments, artistic aspirations, techniques, small-format images, albums, commercial strategies, sitters, and sources of inspiration. Also provided are a selected bibliography of publications on Cameron, a list of exhibitions of her work held both in her time as well as our own, and a summary of important collections where her pictures can be found.

Third in the medieval fantasy series. “A perfectly delicious, not entirely serious, reimagining of part of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.”—Booklist Her castle under siege by an evil knight who keeps beheading all her would-be rescuers, Lady Lynet realizes the only way to get help is to get it herself. So one night she slips away and strikes out for King Arthur’s court where she hopes to find a gallant knight to vanquish the Knight of the Red Lands and free her castle. Gerald Morris’s Arthurian novel is a highly comic tale of hidden identities, mysterious knights, faeries and enchantments, damsels-in-distress, and true love. “In Morris’s third wry, sometimes hilarious, take on an Arthurian legend, a sharp-tongued young damosel gets an education in sorcery, intrigue and what true knighthood is all about . . . Fans of Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted, Patricia Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles and similarly lighthearted fantasy will be delighted.”—Kirkus Reviews “A rollicking treatment of a lesser-known episode from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur . . . The novel is also enjoyable for its good-natured spoofing of the conventions of its medieval setting.”—School Library Journal “A rare action-fantasy that crosses age and gender lines.”—The Bulletin

The creators of the Caldecott Medal book, Saint George and the Dragon, tell the Arthurian tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney's first adventure. The Knights of the Round Table were in their glory. When an unknown stranger visits the castle and asks Kin Arthur's favor, he is allowed to serve in the kitchen for his meat and bread. Little does anyone suspect that he is of noble blood and will soon be knighted by the famous Sir Lancelot. Lush illustrations bring the reader into the book, as Sir Gareth meets adventures and battles to free a princess from the fearsome Red Knight of the Plain. Based on an excerpt from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur and in consultation with both the famous Caxton and Winchester texts, this enduring story of gallant knights in armor, epic battles, and quests fulfilled has broad appeal for young adventurers.