In acceding to their request I wish to say that the book as now published
is merely a word-for-word reprint of my early effort to help to popularise
the Arthur legends.

It is little else than an abridgment of Sir Thomas Malory's version of
them as printed by Caxton--with a few additions from Geoffrey of Monmouth
and other sources--and an endeavour to arrange the many tales into a more
or less consecutive story.

The chief pleasure which came to me from it was, and is, that it began for
me a long and intimate acquaintance with Lord Tennyson, to whom, by his
permission, I Dedicated it before I was personally known to him.

JAMES KNOWLES.




_Addendum by Lady Knowles_


In response to a widely expressed wish for a fresh edition of this little
book--now for some years out of print--a new and ninth edition has been
prepared.

In his preface my husband says that the intimacy with Lord Tennyson to
which it led was the chief pleasure the book brought him. I have been
asked to furnish a few more particulars on this point that may be
generally interesting, and feel that I cannot do better than give some
extracts from a letter written by himself to a friend in July 1896.