Idylls of the King. [Fore-edge Painting].

TENNYSON, Alfred.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 139645

London: Strahan and Co., Publishers, 1869.

Finely bound example of Tennyson’s “long-meditated great task” which brought him to fame; decorated with a concealed fore-edge painting of the great court of Trinity College (Baugh, 1388). Octavo, bound in full pebbled green morocco with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raise bands, gilt ruling and scrolled cornerpieces to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, decorated with a highly detailed concealed fore-edge painting of the Great Court of Trinity College. Ownership inscriptions. In good condition with the fore-edge painting very crisp.

With Idylls of the King, one of the giants of Victorian literature turned his considerable talents to the lore surrounding a larger-than-life British ruler. Alfred, Lord Tennyson cast his interpretation of Arthurian myth into the form of an epic poem, and his tales of Camelot soar to remarkable imaginative heights to trace the birth of a king; the founding, fellowship, and decline of the Round Table; and the king's inevitable departure. Encompassing romance, heroism, duty, and conflict, Tennyson's poetry charts the rise and fall of a legendary society. “By the early 19th century, the Arthurian legends had become a literary anachronism. Tennyson’s poetry brought about a rebirth of interest in the material and eventually placed it on a new plateau of respect and significance for writers and artists… Tennyson’s recreation of the Arthurian world is an attempt to reform his generation by showing the effects of sensuality, materialism and spiritual blindness” (Lacy, 446-49).