King Arthur ¦ King Arthur

The reason for the lasting appeal of .Arthurian narratives for re-teller and artist is obvious enough. Few traditional tales offer such a heady combination of high courage and base deceit, loyalty and betrayal, colour, intrigue and romance; cruelty and violence abound, but they co-exist with a lofty sense of idealism and an emphasis on chivalrous courtesy.

In terms of content there is little to choose between these attractively` produced re-tellings, since all the best known episodes from the original stories are included in both. Riordan's version is more literary, more poetic and features, by way of centre-piece, a vivid rendering of the Middle English poem ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. Ambrus's illustrations reflect the passionate vigour of the text but show also the human being beneath the hero: Lady Mary's bedroom visit to Arthur (in the Gawain pages) provides an excellent example. Humphries' illustrations for the Dorling Kindersley volume are more conventionally 'medieval', incorporating a few Pre-Raphaelite (and Hollywood) influences. The supporting information about the stories and their origins results in a book ideal for all sorts of Arthurian classroom projects. Kerven's text, though perfectly readable, is occasionally flat; it does not have Riordan's energy or his sense of pace.