King Arthur in Cornwall

Dickinson, W. Howship (William Howship), 1832-1913Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.6

Word count: 103K words
Chapters: 11

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.King Arthur in Cornwall by W. Howship DickinsonAuthor: Dickinson, W. Howship (William Howship), 1832-1913,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Jan 5, 2013

Editor's review

This book is a survey by the nineteenth-century English physician and antiquarian W. Howship Dickinson of the sites associated with the Arthurian legend in Cornwall, belonging to the early tradition of writing in which local legend and historical geography intertwine. Its value lies not in offering definitive conclusions but in setting place names, churches, crosses, ancient castles, and folk tales side by side, showing how a Victorian scholar sought Arthur between fieldwork and documents. For readers familiar with the Arthur of Malory or Tennyson, this book offers another path: to see how the legend took root through Cornwall's coasts and moors. The prose has the unhurried pace and antiquarian bent of a nineteenth-century essay, suited to slow reading and to serving as background before a journey. A caveat: many of the book's inferences now appear outdated, and readers should treat it as a sample of historical source material and of the history of scholarship rather than an authoritative guide.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the Arthurian legend and English local legends
Those planning a trip to Cornwall who wish to understand the local legendary background
Scholars studying nineteenth-century English antiquarianism and local-history writing
Readers who enjoy slow-paced antiquarian essays and do not demand conclusions

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking modern scholarly conclusions or archaeological evidence
Readers expecting a full retelling of the Arthurian story or a fictionalized narrative
Readers with little patience for the nineteenth-century English essay style

Reading tips

Begin with the table of contents and the concluding sections, then return to the individual location chapters to build a geographical framework.
Reading alongside a map of Cornwall or an online map to match the place names will markedly improve the experience.
Take brief notes when encountering inferential conclusions, distinguishing between the remains the author saw and his interpretations.
Read in comparison with modern Arthurian scholarship to observe how scholarly methods have changed.

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.

FAQ

Is this book suitable as a travel guide to Arthurian sites in Cornwall?

It should not be used directly as a travel guide. It was written in the nineteenth century, its descriptions of locations and transport information are long outdated, and later scholars have revised the identification of some sites. It is better used as background reading—to understand the legendary threads before a trip—while modern guide materials are used on site to verify locations and current conditions.

Can I understand it without basic knowledge of the Arthurian legend?

You can read it, but the experience will suffer. The book frequently mentions Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, and related place-name allusions; without any grasp of the legendary framework, it is easy to get lost in antiquarian detail. Reading a brief overview of the Arthurian story first is recommended before turning to this book.

How difficult is the English?

It belongs to the nineteenth-century scholarly essay style, with long sentences and numerous proper place names and antiquarian terms, but overall it is not overly abstruse. Readers with university-level English reading ability can complete it with a dictionary; there is no need to scrutinize every word—focus on grasping the arguments of each chapter.

Are the book's views still credible today?

They must be evaluated selectively. The author's descriptions of the sites as they then were have value as historical source material, but modern scholarship views with caution, or even rejects, his inferences that directly link many local legends to King Arthur. When reading, the author's conclusions are best treated as a sample of nineteenth-century antiquarianism rather than as settled fact.

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About the author

Dickinson, W. Howship (William Howship), 1832-1913 Author · British · 1832–1913

W. Howship Dickinson (William Howship Dickinson, 1832–1913) was a British physician and a specialist in nephrology who wrote works on medical research and clinical practice. Beyond medicine, he also wrote King Arthur in Cornwall, a book discussing the relationship between the Arthurian legend and local traditions in Cornwall, which shows his interest in history and regional lore. Only one of his works is currently held in the collection, and public information is limited; scholarly attention to his literary writing as a whole is sparse, and commentary on it is modest. On the whole, he is known chiefly as a physician, and his literary works are a side pursuit. Readers consulting his book should understand it against the background of a Victorian British physician and antiquarian rather than regard him as a professional literary figure.