What is your favourite version of the Arthurian legend?

I'm an old fashioned typa girl. I've read a fair few of those versions, but I do love my Morte D'Arthur, and the original ones I read. The first one I read, was a beautiful old fashioned book, with wonderful line drawings of Vivian, it was absolutely true to the original legends and written in a wonderful way- full of old fashioned language.

Though to be fair The Past and Present King was rather good- especially the Lancelot part. What about you?
 
I don't think I've ever read an Arthurian legend I truly liked... There are too many aspects of the epic legend that make it difficult to fully appreciate one or the other...

Guess I just like the Characters... Merlin - travelling backwards in time, that is how he is able to see the future and his imprisonment for his love of Nimh(?)... Battle between Arthur and his nephew Mordred for dominance... The fact that the King is one with the land... The love between Lancelot and Guinevere that threatens to cause upheval within Camelot - the betrayal!!!

All the knights - Bors, Gawain, Galahad, Percival, Tristan, etc...

The idea of the Round Table...

It is all good...
 
I like them all. Those that I've read, that is! They are like cookies, they all have their plusses and minuses but they all taste good going down :)

I think my first was the Mary Stewart versions. I enjoyed the scifi twist of the Simon Green version as well.

There are tons there I've never even heard of, much less read. I may have to amend my 'to read' list again. Darn you people!
 
Oh, what a good idea for a topic!

I've read quite a few of the books on that list. There was a time when I thought if I ever read another Arthurian epic I'd go stark staring mad. Wouldn't touch one for five or six years. But then I realized that somehow during that time my interest had revived. (Which was a good thing, because people kept on writing them during that time in spite of me.)

But how to choose a favorite? It's probably a tie between the T.H. White and the Mary Stewart versions, because those are the two that seem to stay with me. Although The Grail of Hearts is an awesome book, and so is The War in Heaven.

And I'll read any version of Gawain and the Green Knight that I can get my hands on. I love that story.
 
Le Morte d'Arthur is so splendid-- after reading it last year, it began to surprise me that anyone would want to retell something that had already been done so brilliantly. The final books are amazing, and I consistently find myself a bit teary when finishing them. The ending is perfect.

Anyway, that said, I like a number of the retellings. Gerald Morris's YA spoofs on Arthuriana are anachronistic, clever, and often laugh out loud funny (particularly if you've read the medieval works they're based on; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight gets a redo, as do Malory and Chretien de Troy episodes). The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf is my favorite; it takes the less popular episode with Beaumains (Gaheris, properly, I think?) and Lyonet and Lyonesse. None of them are particularly profound, but they are a lot of fun. I also like The Once and Future King, though it was required reading during high school, which dampened my appreciation of it.
 
Beaumains was Gareth. His story is another one of the old ones I love. Also Sir Gawaine and the Loathely Lady. I just have a soft place in my heart for those boys from Orkney.
 
I like so many people have read an unbelievable amount of Arthurian fiction. Le Morte d'Arthur is excellent and I enjoyed this one the most as a child. However, Le Morte d'Arthur is too much the fairy tale and becomes more disappointing the more you realise that it has no basis in fact. Still a great book though.

For some reason I could never get away with The Once and Future King, but I can not recall exactly why. If I remember there was a reference to Robin Hood near the start of the novel which killed it for me.

David Gemmell's Ghost King and Last Sword of Power were good but do not rank highly against other works of Arthurian fiction.

I have to say that the best version I have ever read is the one I am currently reading. Bernard Cornwell in his Warlord Chronicles Trilogy creates a plausible Arthurian legend, with plausible characters and plausible events. With this in mind Cornwell's world remains fantastical, and none of his character are found lacking. I despise Cornwell's Lancelot and love his Nimue. If you love Arthurian legend then these books are a must read.

Stephen Lawhead's Arthurian books did not achieve anything for me, he merely cashed in in what is clearly a popular market.

I vaguely remember reading the Rosemary Sutcliff books as child and enjoying them immensley. These books are however very childish, but I guess that is their design.

I think that I have liked all of the Arthurian poetry that I have read.
 
Ah, yes! I get a bit confused with names of the Orkney princes. Too many of them start with Ga--! Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, and...Agravaine. I recently came across a wonderful illustrated version of Gareth's story called The Kitchen Knight. The illustrations are done by Trina Schart Hyman, who is one of my favorite contemporary illustrators.

I blanked when I was writing my earlier post. Most of the Arthurians I've read have been YA; but I remember liking Elizabeth Wein's rather dark, sophisticated Winter Prince and Nancy Springer's I Am Morgan Le Fay. Jane Yolen's recent Sword of the Rightful King was also interesting, though her Arthur is not particularly appealing. Anne McCaffrey's Black Horses for the King is a well researched historical version which is primarily interested in, well, horses. I haven't read it for several years, but I do remember enjoying it.
 
Arthurian legend. Ah.


I really enjoyed Chretien de Troyes' Arthurian romances. It was like stepping back in time, to a different world-view and a different way of story telling.

The only contemporary take on the legend I have any time for is Nikolai Tolstoy's The Coming of the King, a chaotic, vivid and truly mythopoeic look at Merlin. Merlin not as a sanitised post-Gandalfian mage, but as he may really have been.

And yes, he turns into a fish at some point.

Patricia Keneally did do some interesting things with the idea of Arthur in space in her Keltiad books - worth a look.
 
I remember reading one book when i was a child in which the pov was a boy who gets taken with arthur and helps gather horses from arabia and you only view arthur at a distance, it was well written but i can't recall the title or the author, anyway my current favourite take on the Arthurian legend would have to be 'the last legion' by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, though it takes you a while to realise where it is leading.
 
I like Valerio Massimo Manfredi's earlier work. His most recent work has become repetitive and quite dull. I enjoyed The Last Legion but his best work today is his Alexander trilogy and The Spartan.
 
I liked the 2nd and 3rd parts of T.H. White's books, not the part with Arthuer as Wart which was just creepy...


You have nice taste Ailanna... liking le Morte d'Arthur, and the other person who likes Gawain and the Green Knight.

Anyone else dislike Guinevere?
 
I hate her in every version that I have read. I despise her. All the other female characters are tremendous, though I hate Morgan in some versions of this tale. Elaine, Nimue and Isolt are fantastic. Nimue is perhaps my favourite female character of all time, from any work of fiction. I hated her when I was a child for what she did to Merlin but you realise with age that Merlin had it cominjg to him. I also despise Lancelot in many versions of the Arthurian legend, though he quite often redeems himself in most versions.
 
I absolutely loved the Once and Future King. It was the way he developed the relationships between Lancelot and Gareth as well as Arthur and Mordred that caused my love with the book. He really made me care what happened to the characters.
 
Fourth Hunter said:
I absolutely loved the Once and Future King. It was the way he developed the relationships between Lancelot and Gareth as well as Arthur and Mordred that caused my love with the book. He really made me care what happened to the characters.
Click to expand...

This is one of my favourite books. I know exactly what you mean about making you care

I also liked Marion Zimmer Bradlys Mists of Avalon.
 
I had "The sword in the stone"read to me whenI was too young to read it myself (good lord, that was a while ago), and still find some of the scenes better than the rewritten version in "Once and future king"
Still, it doesn't even pretend to be accurate (plate armour, Robin 'ood and jousting) and my most used image is the Mary Stewart "Crystal cave" series.
Still, that list is not all that recent; I've read a couple of Arthurians that weren't on it.
 
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