Brown cloth binding with green and black image of robin on the front board. Gilt title on the spine.

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A great children’s book kept in wonderful condition

N C Wyeth (illustrator). A brightly illustrated and attractively bound edition of the tale of this legendary heroic outlaw. A delightful edition of the infamous Robin Hood tale, illustrated with five full colour plates bearing the artwork of N. C. Wyeth, known as one of America’s greatest illustrators. During his lifetime, Wyeth created more than 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books. Wyeth first produced these illustrations in 1917.With a fascinating introduction exploring the veracity of the legend of the prince of thieves, this is J. Walker McSpadden and Charles Wilson’s version of the tale, ‘retold from old ballads’.This edition dated circa 1926 via Jisc. In the publisher’s original pictorial cloth binding.

The first published prose account of Robin Hood’s life appears to be the anonymously authored The Noble Birth and Gallant Atchievements of that Remarkable Out-Law, Robin Hood (1678). Material from this work was often plagiarised by criminal biographers in works such as: The Whole Life and Merry Exploits of Bold Robin Hood (1712), Alexander Smith’s A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts and Cheats (1719), Charles Johnson’s Lives and Exploits of the Most Noted Highwaymen (1734). In addition, there were numerous books printed throughout the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that went by the name of Robin Hood’s Garland. These were cheaply printed collections of later Robin Hood ballads.

The first Robin Hood novel written, although not published, is Robert Southey’s ‘Harold, or, The Castle of Morford’ (1791). This exists in manuscript form in the Bodleian Library. The first published Robin Hood novel was the anonymous Robin Hood: A Tale of the Olden Time (1819), and a few months later Ivanhoe by Walter Scott, 1819. Ivanhoe was Scott’s first novel where history and romance is combined. Robin Hood in this book is the saviour of the nation. The Upper classes need the working classes as much as the working classes rely on their ‘betters’. Scott’s tale is significant because it is the first time that Robin is presented as an Anglo-Saxon freedom fighter, a theme which many later Victorian Robin Hood novels would utilise. The next novel following Scott was Thomas Love Peacock’s novella Maid Marian. The novel was originally intended as a satire on continental conservatism and its enthusiasm for all things feudal and medieval, and in particular the unwarranted praise of aristocracy. Thus through his novella Peacock attempted to show how man’s feudal overlords have always been the same: greedy, violent, cynical, and self-interested. Robin also appears as the principal protagonist of two tales printed in an early penny blood entitled Lives of the Highwaymen in 1836. This serialised tale, however, is little more than a reprint of the earlier biography of Robin Hood that appeared in Charles Johnson’s work. In Thomas Miller’s Royston Gower; or, The Days of King John (1838), Robin is not the principal protagonist but is an outlaw who comes to the aid of the title character after he defects from the Normans and decides to fight against King John for the establishment of a ‘charter of rights’. G. P. R. James’ Forest Days (1843), while not intended as a political or social commentary, is significant because it abandons the traditional dating of the Robin Hood story in the 1190s and instead places the Robin Hood legend during the Simon de Montfort rebellion (1264-67). By far the longest Robin Hood novel, standing at almost half-a-million words, is Pierce Egan the Younger’s Robin Hood and Little John; or, The Merrie Men of Sherwood Forest (serialised 1838-1840). As in Ivanhoe, Robin is a Saxon, although he is not actually outlawed in the novel until nearly the end of the first book. The novel traces Robin’s life from birth to death. Egan’s text was translated into two French books, Le prince des voleurs (The Prince of Thieves), and Robin Hood le proscrit (Robin Hood the Outlaw), by Alexandre Dumas, between 1863–64. Dumas’ works were then retranslated back into English by Alfred Allinson in 1904. A ‘companion’ novel to Egan’s text was published by J. H. Stocqueler in 1849 entitled Maid Marian, the Forest Queen; Being a Companion to “Robin Hood”. The first Robin Hood novel written specifically for children appears to be Stephen Percy’s Tales of Robin Hood (1840). John B. Marsh’s children’s book Robin Hood appeared in 1865, as did a penny dreadful entitled Little John and Will Scarlet (1865). The next major novel written was entitled The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle in 1883. In T. H. White’s novel The Sword in the Stone (1938, later incorporated into The Once and Future King), young Wart (Arthur) and Kay have an adventure with a man they initially call Robin Hood, but are told that his real name is Robin Wood. His merry men refer to him as “Robin ‘ood,” dropping Ws instead of Hs, in the Nottinghamshire accent of the time. White’s theory is supported by the fact that the French call him Robin des Bois, or Robin of the Woods.

J. Walker McSpadden (Joseph Walker) 1874-1960 was the author of STORIES OF ROBIN HOOD” “STORIES FROM DICKENS””STORIES FROM CHAUCER” ETC

Newell Convers Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), known as N. C. Wyeth was an American painter and illustrator. He was the pupil of Howard Pyle and became one of America’s most well-known illustrators. Wyeth created more than 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books — 25 of them for Scribner’s, the Scribner Classics, which is the body of work for which he is best known. The first of these, Treasure Island, was one of his masterpieces and the proceeds paid for his studio. Wyeth was a realist painter at a time when the camera and photography began to compete with his craft. Sometimes seen as melodramatic, his illustrations were designed to be understood quickly. Wyeth, who was both a painter and an illustrator, understood the difference, and said in 1908, “Painting and illustration cannot be mixed—one cannot merge from one into the other.”

He is the father of Andrew Wyeth and the grandfather of Jamie Wyeth, both well-known American painters.