Pyle - Complete Works of Howard Pyle

The Complete Works of

HOWARD PYLE

(1853-1911)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2019

Version 1

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The Complete Works of

HOWARD PYLE

By Delphi Classics, 2019

Complete Works of Howard Pyle

First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Delphi Classics.

Delphi Classics, 2019.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78877 955 5

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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Wilmington, Delaware Pyles birthplace

Map of Wilmington, Delaware, 1874

Howard Pyle as a young man, c.1883

To give it its full name, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire was first serialised in many newspapers in the spring of 1883 with the book publication following in the autumn of that year.

For his first novel Pyle, who up until then had worked mainly as an artist and only occasionally written, took many of the ballads from the Middle Ages that featured Robin and wove them into a cohesive story that told not just of how Robin became an outlaw, but how he recruited his merry men whilst resisting authority and helping the poor. In doing this he helped establish the template for virtually every retelling of the Robin Hood legend throughout the twentieth century.

The enthusiasm of the generic text issued by Scribners the publishers These delightful romances which have made the bold ranger the ideal of the outlaw class at a time when that class included not only fugitives from justice, but also refugees from oppression and misrule, have furnished for generations a source of inexhaustible entertainment to old and young was ultimately matched by the reviews. The New York Tribune said, This extraordinary book is unquestionably the most original and elaborate book ever produced by an American artistoriginal in text, original in illustration, original in cover, quaint and attractive inside and out, whilst Literary World declared that, From a careful examination of the advance sheets we are able to testify to its admirable literary and artistic qualities.

The first edition

The original frontispiece

The first editions title page

FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE READER

You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap to the leaves and go no farther than this, for I tell you plainly that if you go farther you will be scandalized by seeing good, sober folks of real history so frisk and caper in gay colors and motley that you would not know them but for the names tagged to them. Here is a stout, lusty fellow with a quick temper, yet none so ill for all that, who goes by the name of Henry II. Here is a fair, gentle lady before whom all the others bow and call her Queen Eleanor. Here is a fat rogue of a fellow, dressed up in rich robes of a clerical kind, that all the good folk call my Lord Bishop of Hereford. Here is a certain fellow with a sour temper and a grim look the worshipful, the Sheriff of Nottingham. And here, above all, is a great, tall, merry fellow that roams the greenwood and joins in homely sports, and sits beside the Sheriff at merry feast, which same beareth the name of the proudest of the Plantagenets Richard of the Lions Heart. Beside these are a whole host of knights, priests, nobles, burghers, yeomen, pages, ladies, lasses, landlords, beggars, peddlers, and what not, all living the merriest of merry lives, and all bound by nothing but a few odd strands of certain old ballads (snipped and clipped and tied together again in a score of knots) which draw these jocund fellows here and there, singing as they go.