The Boy's King Arthur
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Lanier, Sidney. The Boy's King Arthur. Ill. N. C. Wyeth. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917.
Howard Pyle 's student N. C. [Newell Convers] Wyeth (1882-1945), a prolific artist so intent on continuing Pyle's celebration of the American historical past that he settled near Pyle and even raised his own family—which included his son, artist Andrew Wyeth—there. Among the most memorable of Wyeth's numerous illustrations were his color images for the 1917 reissue of Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur (first printed in 1880 with illustrations by Alfred Kappes), which formed an intricate part of the book. With their romantic vision of noble knights and comely ladies and their realistic details of the terrain (based on the sweeping landscapes of the Brandywine Valley), the illustrations stressed the chivalric ideals of bravery, loyalty, devotion, and friendship that Pyle advocated as appropriate values for younger readers to adopt. Walker Percy, author of the award-winning novel Lancelot, published in 1977, recalled that he was inspired in his writing of the novel by his childhood reading of Lanier's book The Boy's King Arthur, 'most importantly [by] the marvellous illustrations by N. C. Wyeth—most especially the one of Lancelot bloodied up in his chain mail and leaning on his broadsword and [addressing] Sir Turquine.' Though the original 1880 illustrations are rarely reproduced, Wyeth's have been included in many re-issues of Lanier's book and are still in print.
