Customer Reviews

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Arthurian Legends

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This is an A-Z encyclopedia of the people, places, events, and artifacts pertaining to the various derivations of the Arthurian legends. It is lavishly illustrated with artwork and is an exhaustive reference source. The author states upfront that, for purposes of study, he considers any literature written before the time of Thomas Malory's LE MORTE D'ARTHUR to be fair game and part of "authentic" Arthurian lore. Anything after Malory is either a modernization or a retelling of the original legends. Therefore, references to works such as Tennyson's IDYLLS OF THE KING and White's ONCE AND FUTURE KING are omitted.

This book is wonderful reference material. It alludes to many obscure source materials and attempts to explain the origin of many elements of the stories of Arthur and the Round Table. However, I would not recommend it for novice fans. Coghlan takes it for granted that most of the stories are familiar, and he spends most of his time explaining how the stories originated, how they were altered over time, and why inconsistencies exist. The format of the book makes it useful for looking up a particular name but not for browsing through a chronology of the tales.

This book is for the scholars and historians, not necessarily the readers and dreamers.

If you or someone you know is a student of Arthurian Legend, this makes a beautiful gift. It is a rich "Who's Who" of the various strains of the tales copiously illustrated by the appropriate family trees, facsimiles of medieval illumination, photographs of the historical sites and Pre-Raphaelite reproductions. Lovers of the legend will treasure this book!

Ah, The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legends: I was practically raised on this book! I have learned everything I know about Arthurian Legend with it. I have always loved it not only because I was able to study the literary aspects of Arthurian Legend, but also the historic background of the legends themselves. I understand it may seem a bit over people's heads at times (mainly because of its lack of detail on certain topics). Although, I am not sure it had much to do with the author. (Sometimes it is brief because there is not a lot of information available to us in some cases). I would agree that it is apparent in this book that his knowledge is extensive, and perhaps he does take some of it for granted. Personally, the only thing I can really complain about are his brief descriptions of some the alternate legends, as there was little mentioned as to WHY there were differing versions. I would have liked to have seen more on each subject in general in the book. However, so far I have not come across such a balanced book on Arthurian Legend: (not too hard a read, but yet not too basic). I would recommend this book to one who is getting started in the legends, as it is arranged in an easy elementary storybook fashion. I would also recommend, however, reading "La Morte D'Arthur" by Sir Thomas Mallory concurrently. "The Encyclopaedia" would be a great addition to any library of Arthurian Legends, and I think it's shame it is out of print.

Other reviews claimed that this Encyclopedia was scholarly and exhaustive, so I purchased it to aid in my research. Not only did it NOT include characters from the less popular/canonical texts, but it had entries that were missing information, had incorrect information, used spellings of names that I have never seen elsewhere without including their variant spellings, and didn't bother to say from which texts the characters it was describing came. The complete unreliability of the Encyclopedia was such that even if it did contain an entry for a character that I needed to look up, I would be hesitant to trust what it has to say.

The Encyclopedia would be a great buy for someone who has a mild interest in Arthurian legend, but is useless as a tool for a scholar. Its beautiful illustrations and designs are a saving grace--it makes a good coffee table book, but if you are looking for a book that includes correct and thorough information, I would recommend Christopher Bruce's Arthurian Names Dictionary or Norris J. Lacy's New Arthurian Encyclopedia.