The Middle English romance has elicited throughout the centuries a curious mixture of indifference, hostile apprehension, and contempt that perhaps no other literature--except its most likely offspring, modern best-sellers--has provoked.

Edmund Spenser's vast epic poem The Faerie Queene is the most challenging masterpiece in early modern literature and is praised as the work most representative of the Elizabethan age. In it he fused traditions of medieval romance and classical epic, his religious and political allegory creating a Protestant alternative to the Catholic romances rejected by humanists and Puritans. The poem was later made over as children's literature, retold in lavish volumes and schoolbooks and appreciated in pedagogical studies and literary histories. Spenser's stories of knights, dragons, giants, magicians, Saracens, castles, quests and tournaments were the stuff of popular medieval romances and chapbooks. One fascinating knight was a woman, Britomart. Distinguished writers for children simplified the stories and noted artists illustrated them. Children were not encouraged to consider the allegory but be inspired to the moral virtues epitomized by the Red Cross Knight (holiness), Sir Guyon (temperance), Britomart (chastity), Triamond and Cambell (friendship), Sir Artegal (justice) and Sir Calidore (courtesy). As adults, they could fully appreciate the achievement of ""the poets' poet.

Although William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, he traditionally receives little notice in studies of children's literature. However, there is a fascinating relationship between Shakespeare and children's interests, and the Bard's works have been successfully adapted for children's use over several centuries.This book continues and parallels the author's previous study, ""Chaucer as Children's Literature"", as part of a greater endeavor to evaluate the significance of traditional literature retold as children's literature in modern English studies. It examines the ways in which William Shakespeare's stories have been adapted for children, particularly in Mary and Charles Lamb's ""Tales from Shakespeare"", which was almost immediately recognized as a classic of children's literature when it was first published in 1807. The author describes the significance of the Lamb's ""Tales"" as the pre-eminent children's adaptation of Shakespeare's literature, focusing particularly on the lavishly illustrated Edwardian editions which used pictures to convey Shakespeare's stories for children.The other topics include Victorian alternatives to the Lambs' stories, including anthologies from David Murray Smith, Abby Sage Richardson, and Mary Seymour; the lavish illustrations of Shakespeare's stories found in antique English textbooks; Shakespeare in nursery books, including sophisticated collections from Mary Macleod, Thomas Carter, Alice S. Hoffman, and other noted authors; and Shakespeare in multi-volume American collections, including ""The Children's Hour"", ""Journeys through Bookland"", and ""The Junior Classics"".

Geoffrey Chaucer is the major author for Middle English studies and therefore usually receives at most a casual glance in studies of children's literature. There have always been, however, fascinating affinities between Chaucer and children that have made retellings of his stories for children especially popular. This book examines in detail Chaucer stories retold for children - both the text and the illustrations. Many Chaucer stories are excellent examples of the relationship between verbal and visual storytelling that is very important in children's literature. The most popular Chaucer stories, the adjustments for children, and the historical, political, educational, and social contexts of the retellings are also covered. The author also considers how retellings of Chaucer stories contributed to the traditional view of Chaucer as the father of English poetry and how this view of him was developed at the turn of the twentieth century as part of an expansion of general education and English studies.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Cervantes's Don Quixote, recently chosen the world's best book by well-known authors from fifty-four countries, has from its publication in 1605 been widely translated and imitated. Throughout the world "quixotic" and "tilting at windmills" are commonplaces, and the thin knight-errant and his plump squire Sancho Panza familiar icons. Critics regard Cervantes as the inventor of fiction, author of the first novel. Consistently judged too long and complex to be read in its entirety, Don Quixote, has always inspired abbreviations and adaptations. Major and now forgotten writers were deeply influenced by the Spanish author; in English they wrote chapbooks, satiric verses, essays, plays, and novels. Cervantes's post chivalric romance inspired by the Counter Reformation in Spain became a classic for Protestant England that condemned Catholic medieval romances. Don Quixote, as children's literature, informed by adult renderings, is a major but neglected part of this remarkable tradition. In extravagant Edwardian books, collections, home libraries, and schoolbooks, words and pictures by distinguished artists retold adventures both noble and "mad." Recent adaptations-including comics and graphic novels-express current difference but also support the knight-errant's affinity to children and lasting influence.

This book assesses William Shakespeare in the context of political and religious crisis, paying particular attention to his Catholic connections, which have heretofore been underplayed by much Protestant interpretation. Bourgeois Richmond's most important contribution is to study the genre of romance in its guise as a 'cover' for recusant Catholicism, drawing on a long tradition of medieval-religious plays devoted to the propagation of Catholic religious faith.