King Arthur's Wood
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Forbes, Elizabeth Stanhope. King Arthur's Wood: Written and Illustrated by Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes and with It the Tale Re-Told of Sir Gareth of Orkney and ye Lady of ye Castle Perilous. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., n.d. [1905]. (With 14 color and 14 tinted plates after water-colors and charcoals by the author.)
In King Arthur's Wood, written and illustrated by Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes (1859-1912) and set in the modern world, a young boy named Myles Morris meets a 'little Brown Spirit of the Woodlands' and hears from him the deeds of Sir Gareth as a 'shining . . . example.' Forbes's account of Gareth's deeds is based on Malory's 'Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney'; and the 'Spirit' who relates it to Myles is the dwarf who accompanied Gareth on his quest. That Spirit teaches Myles to love the creatures of the woods, to be kind to all things weaker than himself, and, through the story of Gareth, to be honest and brave. Thanks to the Spirit's advice, Myles grows into a good and successful man. The elaborate illustrations, moreover, make Forbes's book an art object in its own right. Elizabeth Forbes and her husband Stanhope Forbes founded the famous Newlyn School of Art in 1899.