Customer Reviews

Dore's Illustrations for "Idylls of the King" (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

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Gustave Dore first published these intricate and beautiful wood-engraved book illustrations for Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" in the 1860s. Though many, many fabulous illustrations have been created for the legends of King Arthur and his Court these still remain among the finest. This book contains 36 black and white plates, each 7 1/2" x 10" and thus nicely sized for optimal viewing of the exquisite detail. A corresponding excerpt from "Idylls of the King" is printed on the facing page of each plate. Dore captured the grandeur and opulence of courtly life, the mystery and magic of the legendary times of Arthur and Merlin, the medieval costumes, furnishings and architecture all with a brilliance that will transport you. Highly recommended!

Unless you have a couple of thousand to plunk down on the first edition of the Idylls, published by Moxon, in the 1860s, in four folio volumes, then this edition is the next best thing. The illustrations are lovely and help to uplift Tennyson's verse. In fact, Dore becme so popular that this edition was often referred to at the time as "The Dore Tennyson," and rightfully so. Dore ismakes Tennyson's verse much better than it actually is; Tennyson, even though great, has a tendency to be somewhat maudlin and laboured in his retellikng of Idylls. If you enjoy Arturian Verse, I suggest you examine Swinburne's work in this area, or the little known Charles Williams, a contemporary of Swinburne's and in this reviewer's opinion the finest Arthurian poet of all. William Morris and Matthew Arnold have also done some interesting things.

I have a leather bound edition of the Complete Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson published MacMillan London 1884, printed 1894 by R & R Clark.

I have long admired the eight Dore prints that it contained for the Idylls. These prints measure 8.5 by 11 cm or just under 3.5 by 4 inches.
The tone of the original prints is wonderfully sombre.

I am greatly disappointed by the Dover reproductions. In my view scaling the works up to 19.9 by 26 cm has completely destroyed the tonal character when compared to those in my 19th century edition. I stress, the tonal character has been altered for the worse. They now look rather washed out. I cannot understand another reviewer's viewpoint that the prints in the Dover edition look too dark. In addition, the scaling has introduced engraving detail that detracts from the images, an analogy is enlarging a digital picture until the individual pixels become apparent, it does the original conception no good at all. Presumably (I'm no printing industry expert) the prints on the 1884 edition are the originally intended size and Dore engraved with a certain level of detail in mind as they certainly work well at that scale.

I am however very grateful to have the complete set. I had planned to use this edition to have them framed.

Alas no, they will have to be further scanned and then reduced in size, hopefully I'll be able to recapture the original intent.

I LOVE Dore's drawings. He is one of the absolute masters, and the Dover Book of his biblical illustrations is wonderful; however, I cannot say the same of this book. Yes, the drawings are Dore all the way, but they are dark - very dark - for the most part. The front panel is the opposite of what one sees inside. Almost all of the prints are gloomy and dark. Thus, I cannot recommend the book.

OK, I'm that person who never pays more then I have too for a book version of anything. So when I ordered this $15 version rather then the mass market $4 one, I was VERY skeptical... this version blew me away for a paper back, it's large pencil drawn sketches on each page, true art work brought the story to life, it made you think about the words, and the charaters just poped off the pages. Well, well, worth the additional price! Excited Teacher...

Dore's art is fascinating. He matches his illustrations to the beauty and mystery of Idylls of the King.