아서왕과 원탁의 기사들

The Legends of KING ARTHUR and his KNIGHTS

Sir James Knowles

Illustrated by Lancelot Speed

TO ALFRED TENNYSON, D.C.L. POET LAUREATE

THIS ATTEMPT AT A POPULAR VERSION OF THE ARTHUR LEGENDS IS BY HIS PERMISSION DEDICATED AS A TRIBUTE OF THE SINCEREST AND WARMEST RESPECT

1862

PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION

The Publishers have asked me to authorise a new edition, in my own name, of this little book--now long out of print--which was written by me thirty-five years ago under the initials J.T.K.

In acceding to their request I wish to say that the book as now published is merely a word-for-word reprint of my early effort to help to popularise the Arthur legends.

It is little else than an abridgment of Sir Thomas Malory's version of them as printed by Caxton--with a few additions from Geoffrey of Monmouth and other sources--and an endeavour to arrange the many tales into a more or less consecutive story.

The chief pleasure which came to me from it was, and is, that it began for me a long and intimate acquaintance with Lord Tennyson, to whom, by his permission, I Dedicated it before I was personally known to him.

JAMES KNOWLES.

_Addendum by Lady Knowles_

In response to a widely expressed wish for a fresh edition of this little book--now for some years out of print--a new and ninth edition has been prepared.

In his preface my husband says that the intimacy with Lord Tennyson to which it led was the chief pleasure the book brought him. I have been asked to furnish a few more particulars on this point that may be generally interesting, and feel that I cannot do better than give some extracts from a letter written by himself to a friend in July 1896.