Stories of King Arthur's Knights, Told to the Children

MacGregor, Mary Esther Miller, 1876-1961Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
109K words
Chapters
11

Tags

Children's Literature Folk LiteratureEnglish Originals Legendary LivesHeroismChivalryAdventure TaleCourt LegendFolk LegendYouth Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Stories of King Arthur's Knights, Told to the Children by Mary MacGregorAuthor: MacGregor, Mary Esther Miller, 1876-1961,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: May 31, 2008

Editor's review

This book is Mary MacGregor's retelling of Arthurian knight stories for children, a public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg. Its value lies in simplifying the complex Arthurian legends while preserving core themes such as knightly adventure, honor, and loyalty, in relatively plain language that makes it a suitable introduction to Western classics for children. Because the retelling is aimed at children, the plot moves clearly and character relationships are uncomplicated, though this also means depth and complexity are sacrificed. Readers can treat each knight's story as a standalone unit without needing to remember every character. Since the stories involve a medieval background and knightly culture, parents or teachers may supplement historical context to help children understand ideas like honor and bravery. As an English-language eBook, it suits children with some English reading foundation, or reading aloud and explanation by adults. Overall, this is a children's retelling that balances classic status with readability, suitable for family reading and classroom extension, but not to be used as a rigorous scholarly edition.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read unit by unit according to the knight stories, briefly retelling characters and adventures after each.
  2. When reading together, first introduce the basic background of King Arthur and the knights, then move on to specific stories.
  3. Turn themes such as honor, bravery, and loyalty into discussion questions connected to children's life experience.
  4. If English reading is difficult, have an adult read aloud first, with the child echoing key passages.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11

FAQ

Is this book the complete original Arthurian legends? No. The information shows this is Mary MacGregor's retelling for children, titled Stories of King Arthur's Knights, Told to the Children. It preserves knightly adventure and core themes but simplifies and selects from the original legends, making it suitable as an introduction, not as a complete original or scholarly edition.
My child is not good at English—can they read this book? This book is in the English original. The language has been adapted for children but still requires some English foundation. Children with weak English are better off having a parent or teacher read aloud and explain, or first reading a Chinese version of the Arthurian stories to build background before trying English passages. Independent reading by complete beginners is not recommended.
In what order should the stories in the book be read? The information does not specify a fixed order, but as a collection of knight stories it can generally be read as independent units. It is suggested to first read the part introducing King Arthur and the knights' background, then read the knight adventure stories one by one. Each story is relatively independent, so there is no need to finish it all at once; after each, briefly retell the characters and events.

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About the author

MacGregor, Mary Esther Miller, 1876-1961 Author

Mary Esther Miller MacGregor (1876-1961) was an English-language writer active from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Public information about her life and nationality is limited, and ten of her works are currently held in the collection. She is best known for retelling classical tales for children, including Stories of Siegfried, Told to the Children; Stories from the Ballads, Told to the Children; and Stories of King Arthur's Knights, Told to the Children, which adapt heroic epics, ballads, and Arthurian legends into narratives accessible to young readers. She also wrote the biography The Black-Bearded Barbarian: The Life of George Leslie Mackay of Formosa, as well as novels with a rural flavour such as Duncan Polite, the Watchman of Glenoro and In Orchard Glen. Her clear, plain style and emphasis on readability and moral meaning gave her a modest place in children's literature and popular history.