Seven Tales from King Arthur's Court , livre ebook

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23 pages

English

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These “Seven Tales'' were published in 1940 in The American Weekly Sunday magazine and have never been seen since. They showcase watercolors by English artist Edmund Dulac, who was one of the Golden Age illustrators. The texts were written by noted American author and musician John Erskine.

Sujets

Folk Tales

Fairy Tales

Legends

Mythology

Fiction

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Publié par	Markosia Enterprises Ltd
Date de parution	17 mars 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781915860101
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	11 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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S EVEN TALES FROM KING ARTHUR’S COURT

PAINTINGS BY EDMUND DULAC
TEXT BY JOHN ERSKINE
EDITED BY ALBERT SELIGMAN

Seven Tales From King Arthur’s Court TM & © 2023 Albert Seligman & Markosia Enterprises, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. All names, characters and events in this publication are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Published by Markosia Enterprises, PO BOX 3477, Barnet, Hertfordshire, EN5 9HN.
FIRST PRINTING, March 2023.
Harry Markos, Director.
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-915860-09-5
eBook: ISBN 978-1-915860-10-1
Book design by: Ian Sharman
www.markosia.com
First Edition

INTRODUCTION
T he American Weekly magazine was a Sunday supplement published by the Hearst Corporation from 1896 until 1966. They claimed a circulation of over 50 million readers and it was carried by at least seventeen of the Hearst newspapers. Each edition was usually between 12 and 24 pages and was printed on very cheap and fragile newsprint, so not many intact copies survive today. Like most Sunday supplements of the time, it was filled with sensationalism and illustrations of scantily clad females, and some fiction articles as well. However, the front cover art was really notable. In addition to Edmund Dulac, the front cover artists were some of the most famous of the times, including Howard Chandler Christy (the Christy Girls), James Montgomery Flagg, Erté, Leon Bakst, Virgil Finlay (also known for his pulp magazine covers), Henry Clive, Alberto Vargas, Nell Brinkley (the Queen of the Comics), Zoe Mozert and many others.

Public domain image provided by Grapefruit Moon Gallery
(Henry Clive Hearst Corporation)
In 1940 The American Weekly published a series of “Seven Tales from King Arthur’s Court” illustrated by Edmund Dulac with the text written by John Erskine. We were very fortunate to find copies of the Dulac series in wonderful condition in the collection of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art. The curator, Bill Blackbeard, allowed us to photograph the covers using a high-quality film camera. These images have been digitized and have been used in the preparation of this book.
Edmund Dulac
Much has been written about Edmund Dulac since his death in 1953 from his third heart attack. He was born in Toulouse France in 1882 and was educated as a lawyer, although he rebelled and later studied art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He is best known for his book illustrations and designs of postage stamps and banknotes.

London, July 1, 1914, New York Public Library, PD-US
Dulac emigrated to England from France in 1904 and was in London at exactly the right time for the invention of color separation photographic reproduction. Prior to color separation process printers relied on wood blocks or expensive and complicated chromo-lithography to include color illustrations in their books. Most illustrators (Arthur Rackham and Heath Robinson for example) used line drawings to hold the difference in the color changes. Dulac was a watercolorist and this new technique allowed him to paint the colors just as he normally would for a painting, without bold lines defining his subjects. He received numerous commissions for the new gift books with full color tipped-in plates mounted on heavy art paper.
He began an arrangement with both Leicester Galleries and Hodder & Stoughton, the book publishers, to paint watercolors for their illustrated gift book editions which would be sold in the gallery exhibit once a year. He produced 50 oriental style drawings for The Arabian Nights in 1907, 40 drawings for an edition of The Tempest in 1908, 20 watercolors, again in his now signature orientalism style, for The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1909. Subsequent editions were The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales in 1910, Stories from Hans Christian Andersen in 1911, and 28 watercolors with dozens of line illustrations for The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe in 1912. After the first World War he illustrated only three more gift books, the last being one of his finest in a Persian miniature style, using gold and silver metallic inks. The Kingdom of the Pearl by Leonard Rosenthal was released in 1920 with a beautiful soft cover French edition in Paris, and two English language editions in London and New York. In spite of the book’s critical acclaim, it was remaindered, although it is greatly sought after today.
In 1923, “Edmund Dulac, the Distinguished English Artist ,” as he was billed on the covers, was contracted by the Hearst organization to paint watercolors for The American Weekly Sunday magazine . The contract lasted 30 years and Dulac painted 107 watercolors for thirteen different series until his last Tales from the Arabian Nights in 1951. “ Seven Tales from King Arthur’s Court” was published in 1940, just as World War II was intensifying for the British. ‘ Arthur will return at the hour of Britain’s greatest need’ the legend of Camelot says, and may have been the motivation to release this series at this time.
John Erskine

Photograph shows John Erskine with daughter, Anna Erskine Crouse, wife,
Pauline Ives Erskine, and son, Graham Erskine. Circa 1930 Library of Congress
The text accompanying these illustrations was written by John Erskine, who was an author, pianist and composer. He was born in New York City in 1879 and raised in Weehawken, New Jersey. He was an English professor at Amherst College from 1903 to 1909 and taught at Columbia University from 1909 to 1937. He was also the first president of Juilliard School of Music from 1928 to 1937 and the director of the New York Metropolitan Opera Association. He published over 100 books, novels and essays, including The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent in 1915 and The Private Life of Helen of Troy in 1925, which was made into a film in 1927. In 1928 he published The Delight of Great Books which included a chapter on Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur , reproduced here. He was responsible for the Great Books academic movement that was part of the core curriculum at Columbia University. It later inspired The Great Books of the Western World published by the Encyclopedia Britannica; a mammoth 60 volume set of literature from works of the ancient Greeks to Ernest Hemmingway. He died in New York in 1951 at age 71.
Following each text is a short Who Was? paragraph explaining the various characters of each Tale. We don’t know exactly who wrote these for the Hearst Corporation, but suspect it is Watson Crewes, Jr. who was a contributing writer.
“Since Malory’s time many writers have used these legends and retold them in their own language. The English authors Tennyson, Swinburne, Matthew Arnold and William Morris have rendered several of the old stories in verse. And noteworthy too, are Wagner’s magnificent music dramas Parsifal, which recounts the legend of the Holy Grail and Tristan and Isolda, perhaps the most famous love story of all times. Mr. John Erskine is now added to this company of distinguished interpreters, who retells them delightfully for readers of The American Weekly”.
Attributed to Watson Crewes, Jr. , The American Weekly , February 4, 1940
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Taylan Coppola for her help with transcribing and editing. Special thanks to Ann Hughey for her contributions and constant encouragement with The American Weekly archive collection. Many thanks to Bud Plant and Jim Vadeboncoeur, America’s consummate illustrated book collectors, for their many additions to my book collections over the years and advice on this project.
Bill Blackbeard’s complete collection of the American Weekly covers now reside at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University and I thank their staff for assistance in my research.
Grapefruit Moon Gallery let me reproduce some of their photos of The American Weekly covers from their fabulous website.
Peter Harrington Company of London also provided artwork, many thanks.
I am grateful to Elizabeth Beeton for designing the front cover, and Cristina and Cassandra of Nubes for the back cover.

Front Cover, Le Mort d’ Arthur , Sir Thomas Malory, published by Dent 1902 with Aubrey Beardsley illustrations, Library of Congress, PD-US
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
The Delight of Great Books by John Erskine
Seven Tales from King Arthur’s Court
First Tale - The Tale of Arthur’s Sword “Excalibur”
Second Tale - The Tale of Sir Tristram and the Love Potent
Third Tale - The Tale of the Enchantress and the Magic Scabbard
Fourth Tale - The Tale of Sir Galahad and his Quest for the Sangreal
Fifth Tale - The Tale of Lancelot and the Four Queens
Sixth Tale - The Tale of Merlin and One of the Ladies of the Lake
Seventh Tale - The Tale of How Sir Lancelot Slew Sir Agravaine
Further Reading
Editors’ Notes
The Delight of Great Books
Eveleigh Nash & Greyson Limited
London, 1928
MALORY’S LE MORTE D’ARTHUR
W hen William Caxton, the great English printer, set the type for Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, he provided the famous book with a preface which is still the most illuminating introduction to it. At the end of the fifteenth century printing was still so unusual an art and the printer felt his office so important, that any book that he took the pains to publish would, in his opinion, deserve a special comment. Caxton says that he has put out various histories, “as well of contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of great conquers and princes.” His reason for bringing out now this collection of stories about King Arthur is that many English gentlemen asked him if it