The Arthur Trilogy #3: King of the Middle March - Hardcover

Crossley-Holland, Kevin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0439266009 ISBN 13: 9780439266000

Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2004

Synopsis

Kevin Crossley-Holland's award-winning Arthur trilogy comes to its triumphant and moving close.

Arthur de Caldicot waits eagerly in Venice for the start of the Fourth Crusade. But it's now when Arthur's future should be clearest that he feels the most doubt. Jealousies and greed rive the Crusade, leading him to question its true mission. Back in England, his engagement to Winnie remains uncertain, while his search for his birth mother has been stymied by his vicious father. And his seeing stone shows him the last days of King Arthur's court--a great dream destroyed, but also a glorious legend rising from the ruins. Likewise in this book, Arthur becomes a man worthy of his kingly name.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Thousands of knights and foot soldiers are mustering in Venice for the launch of the fourth Crusade. Among them in young Arthur de Caldicot, soon to dubbed a knight. He is thrilled to be part of this huge gathering; but all too soon the crusade falls into disarray.

War, romance, murder, family quarrels, power politics, the conflict between Christianity and Islam: all these are elements in an action-packed story that gives us a startlingly vivid picture of medieval life, enriched by earthy comedy and the magic of the Arthurian legends.

About the Author

Kevin Crossley-Holland was born in 1941 in Mursley, North Buckinghamshire, and grew up in Whiteleaf, a village in the Chiltern Hills of western England. He attended Oxford University, where, after failing his first exams, he developed his passion for Anglo-Saxon literature. After graduating, he was the Gregory Fellow in Poetry at the University of Leeds, and from 1972-1977, he lectured in Anglo-Saxon for the Tufts University of London program. He worked as a children’s book editor while beginning to write his own poems and reinterpretations of medieval legends. He has also taught for extended periods in America. He now lives in Norfolk, England.

Kevin Crossley-Holland has published six volumes of adult poetry and several libretti for opera. In the world of children’s books, he is best known for his numerous retellings and anthologies, and in particular his version of Beowolf. Storm, his novella, won the Carnegie Medal in 1985.

The Seeing Stone, published by Scholastic, is his only other work of original fiction. T.H White is the inevitable comparison for Kevin Crossley-Holland’s new novel, American readers will also be reminded of Karen Cushman, for the earthy, rich portrayal of life in a medieval manor. Its sequel, At the Crossing-Places, was published in the United States in fall 2002. The third title in this trilogy is King of the Middle March, which will be published in 2003.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0439266009
• ISBN 13: 9780439266000
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432