Idylls of the King (1896)
Description
Idylls of the King (1896)
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
7 x 5. In English. Published by MacMillan and Co., Ltd., London, 1896. Complete Edition. Three quarter tan morocco over marbled boards. Raised bands, with lovely gilt spine compartments with a simple, yet elegant floral piece. Minor rubbing to extremities. Near fine marble pastedowns, with endpapers free from pencil marks, inscriptions or other marks, save for minor foxing to fore-edges. A rather clean half-title page, “The Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson.” Frontispiece etching of Guinevere. Text is mostly very crisp and clean, though may be the occasional page with some other slight imperfection such as a slight stain, tiny tear, or other minor quirk that comes with a book this age. A very good copy indeed. (The image of the author we included on our website is NOT in the book.)
“Idylls of the King” is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892; Poet Laureate from 1850) which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom. The whole work recounts Arthur's attempt and failure to lift mankind and create a perfect kingdom, from his coming to power to his death at the hands of the traitor Mordred. Individual poems detail the deeds of various knights, including Lancelot, Geraint, Galahad, and Balin and Balan, and Merlin and the Lady of the Lake. There is little transition between Idylls, but the central figure of Arthur links all the stories. The poems were dedicated to the late Albert, Prince Consort. The Idylls are written in blank verse. Tennyson's descriptions of nature are derived from observations of his own surroundings, collected over the course of many years. The dramatic narratives are not an epic either in structure or tone but derive elegiac sadness in the style of the idylls of Theocritus. Idylls of the King is often read as an allegory of the societal conflicts in Britain during the mid-Victorian era. This “complete edition” was first published in 1889; reprinted 1891, 1892, and 1894 (as of and to include this 1896 printing).
Price: $65
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Inventory Number: 76040
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