Ahhhh, my King Arthur phase!
It coincided with my Pre-Raphaelite phase, and as you can see by the covers above, the two passions regularly came together. The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legends (1993) by Ronan Coglan was a Christmas present to self back in 1993.
I loved reading through this book, pouring over the artwork, reading and highlighting sections. I even went to the trouble of digging out some of my photo spares from my trip to the UK in 1991 to act as bookmarks for the pages to do with Stonehenge and Dinas Emrys (“the mountainous place in Snowdonia where Merlin had his confrontation with Vortigern…a subterranean pool containing dragons…near Beddgelert.“)
But I haven’t looked at this book (or its bedfellows) since about 1996. I moved onto other interests.
I picked up Chronicles of King Arthur (1993) by Andrea Hopkins during the summer holidays in Melbourne, the cover and artwork being half the appeal. This was, as the title suggestions, a collection of Arthurian stories with a few basic annotations.
King Arthur’s Place in Prehistory: The Great Age of Stonehenge (1994) by WA Cummins was a more serious tome being my one and only time going down the rabbit hole of ‘was there a real King Arthur?’
Cummins basically presents the various positions and theories but comes down heavily on the side of Arthur: Bronze Age warrior king.
Arthur flits like a ghost across the page of history, with some people believing in him and others not, and no one absolutely certain either way.
(This) Authentic Life 