[Idylls of the King] Enid, Vivien, Elaine, & Guinevere. TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord & DORÉ, Gustave (illustrator). ENGLISH LITERATURE,ILLUSTRATED

FIRST EDITIONS. 4 vols. Folio (42.5 x 30.5 cm). Publishers original green, blue, and russet cloth over bevelled edges, each decorated in black and gilt, spines with gilt lettering, grey- and lilac-coated endpapers, all edges gilt. 36 steel-engraved plates after Gustave Doré, including four frontispieces, each plate captioned and with accompanying tissue-guard. Each volume with large hand-coloure manuscript/printed gift presentations to 'Elsie', dated 24th October, 1876. Some light scuffing to upper board of Vivien, light general shelfwear to extremities and corners, some leaves slightly sprung, contents clean, generally an excellent set, the cloth being remarkably clean and bright. Idylls of the King, originally published between 1859 and 1885, is a cycle of narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 1892; Poet Laureate from 1850) which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom. "One of the finest lyrists of the English tongue" (Kunitz & Haycraft, 612), Tennyson reawakened the general reading public's interest in Arthurian legend with his Idylls of the King. The first four of the cycle's eventual 12 poems were first published in 1859. Tennyson's retelling of the old tales placed them "on a new plateau of respect and significance for writers and artists" (Lacy, 446). "No other foreign illustrator and few native ones of the period so completely captured the English fancy [as Doré] Tennyson and his publisher Moxon greatly favored Doré as an illustrator" (Muir, Victorian Illustrated Books, 227, 244). Moxon was, in fact, "the only publisher ever to commission steel engravings from Doré.the steel engravings give much more of a speckled look to the scenes, different from the grainy look of Doré's usual wood engravings. It produces a dreamy, mystical, serene [feeling] that is quite different for Doré" (Malan, 97).