The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights
by James Knowles

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Title: The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights

Author: James Knowles

Release Date: June 28, 2004 [EBook #12753]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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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.

"DEAR ----,

"I