A Dictionary of King Arthur's Knights: Beyond Lancelot, Tristam & Galahad, Uncloaking the Mystery of Arthur's Noblemen, Knights & Dauntless Warriors

Trying to figure out who's who in King Arthur's Court is pretty tricky. Not only do you have variations of spelling you also have to deal with creative liberties that authors take. When I saw this book listed in the database at the library I almost fell over, I'd never come across a book dedicated solely to Arthur's knights so I ordered it straight away. Our local library is very small but thanks to larger branches, we have the ability to order things within the system and have them delivered to us. After almost a week of transit time, it finally arrived and I started digging into it. Sadly, it wasn't what I expected it to be. Yes, it does give you the listings of knights and kings that showed loyalty to Arthur but it can be extremely difficult to understand. It took me a while and a large pile of scrap paper but I finally made my way through the book and came away from it with a list of names that I want to check into further. If I am going to be well versed at the RenFest (Renaissance Festival) I better brush up on things!

A Dictionary of King Arthur's Knights

You won't find huge entries that span several pages, you won't be able to understand most of the book until you've finished it and you certainly won't be able to make heads to tails of anything without making family trees. So if that is how I open my review of "A Dictionary of King Arthur's Knights", why would I bother to recommend it to those who seek to learn more about the knights that served him? Simply put, there aren't many books out there that give you an almost complete list of names, suggested readings and bloodlines. If you want to get the most from this book you'd be wise to read it from cover to cover, then read it again only this time try to divide up the names and families. You aren't dealing with one single authors view of Arthur, this is a comprehensive list from a tremendous number of books over the years. This is what complicates things; each writer is taking his or her own liberties with characters, adding their own spin to them and sometimes morphing them into something completely different than what had been previously published.