An Arthurian Reader: Selections from Arthurian Legend, Scholarship and Story

by John Matthews

never opened slight page discoloration from age

Genres: Arthurian, History, Mythology, Nonfiction

351 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1988

About the author

John Matthews is an historian, folklorist and author. He has been a full time writer since 1980 and has produced over ninety books on the Arthurian Legends and Grail Studies, as well as short stories and a volume of poetry. He has devoted much of the past thirty years to the study of Arthurian Traditions and myth in general. His best known and most widely read works are ‘Pirates’ (Carlton/Atheneum), No 1 children’s book on the New York Times Review best-seller list for 22 weeks in 2006, ‘The Grail, Quest for Eternal Life’ (Thames & Hudson, 1981) ‘The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom’ (Element, 1994) and ‘The Winter Solstice’ (Quest Books, 1999) which won the Benjamin Franklin Award for that year. His book ‘Celtic Warrior Chiefs’ was a New York Public Library recommended title for young people.

Reviews

[Gille Liath · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an early example of cobbling a book together by ransacking texts in the public domain. That means the scholarship is outdated, the translations (where needed) the ones that have been allowed to go out of print, often with good reason. Even the illustrations - and it was these that swung the balance for me in getting the book - are disappointing. They are Victorian, chintzy as you expect pictures from that era to be, and second-rate at that.

Nowadays it would have been self-published on Amazon, but John Matthews managed to talk the Aquarian Press into printing it. That in itself tells you that he, and his selections, lean towards the supposedly mystical and esoteric, diminishing the importance of Christianity, and disinclined to question any writer's ideas however fanciful. Some of what is billed as 'scholarship' here is just New Age bollocks, or at best merely co-opts the Arthurian stories for its own Fantasia of the Unconscious. Others, like a lengthy C19th piece on 'Arthurian Localities' are full of basic factual errors.

After all Arthur is for some people a sort of fancy-dress alternative to Alien Pyramids, and aliens in turn the counter-cultural alternative to God.

[William Guerrant · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection is uneven. While I appreciate the editor's intent to emphasize lesser-known and more obscure texts, the result (for this reader at least) is that only about half of it was worthwhile. Someone who navigates Middle English better than I do might enjoy it more. Having said that, there are some excellent and fascinating selections included.

[Winter Kuhaupt · Rating 4 out of 5]

ngl I stole this book, and I'm so glad that I did; it fed right into my Arthurian hyper fixation

[Matthew Richey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skip it. Lots of better options.