Old-World Love Stories (1913)

Illustrated by Reginald Knowles

To the left, we show a rare copy of Old-World Love Stories - illustrated by Reginald Knowles and published by J M Dent & Sons Ltd (London) in 1913.   This example retains the original decoratively gilt-stamped red buckram cover.

On the left, we show the illustrated Half-Title page by Reginald Knowles for Old-World Love Stories.           To the right, we display Reginald Knowles' title page to Old-World Love Stories.

Old-World Love Stories is a collection of Medieval Romances and Legends, including the Lays of Marie de France,

as translated by Eugene Mason.

The Lays of Marie de France are, themselves, a collection of short poems composed by a 12th Century French

poet somewhere between 1170 and 1205. Identifying the Lays as originating from Marie de France arises from

the following line appearing in one of her works:

Marie ai nun, si sui de France.

Translated in English, that line reads, "My name is Marie, I am from France". While a historical identity cannot

be firmly associated with the Lays, scholars suggest that individuals likely to have composed the poems include:

Marie, Abbess of Shaftesbury (half-sister to Henry II, King of England); Marie, Abbess of Reading; Marie de

Boulogne; Marie, Abbess of Barking and Marie de Meulan (wife of Hugh Talbot). As included in Old-World

Love Stories, the Lays include: "The Lay of Gugemar"; "The Dolorous Knight or The Lay of the Four Sorrows";

"The Lay of Eliduc"; "The Lay of Sir Launfal"; "The Lay of the Two Lovers"; "The Lay of the Were-Wolf"; "The Lay

of the Ash Tree"; "The Lay of the Honeysuckle"; "The Lay of Milon"; "The Lay of Yonec"; "The Lay of the Thorn";

and "The Lay of Graelent".

Other tales in the collection include: "The Chatelaine of Vergi"; "'Tis of Aucassin and of Nicolette"; "The Story of

King Constant"; and "The Story of Asenath".

The colour illustrations by Reginald Knowles are rendered magnificently and have a gem-like quality while the

monotone images complement the text beautifully.

Our Greeting Cards and Reproduction Prints

We have prepared sets of 8 Greeting Cards displaying each of Knowles' colour images for Old-World Love Stories and on the left, we show an example of how these Greeting Cards appear. Ordering one of those sets is as easy as selecting the "Add to Cart" feature below and following the prompts provided with our Shopping Cart secured through PayPal. Multiple purchases will be consolidated by that feature and shipping and handling costs to any destination in the world are accommodated by our flat-rate fee of US$20 for every US$200 worth of purchases.     Code: RK OWLS CS(8) Price: US$40.00

When presented on Greeting Cards, these images are prepared as tipped-in plates - in homage to the hand-crafted

approach typical of prestige illustrated publications produced in the early decades of the 20th Century.

Hand-finishing is used to replicate the visual appearance of a tipped-in plate and the images are presented on

Ivory card stock (in the case of colour illustrations) or White card stock (in the case of monotone illustrations)

with an accompanying envelope. We have left the cards blank so that you may write your own personal

message.

Should you wish to order a Reproduction Print or an individual Greeting Card from this suite of images, we

welcome your contact through ThePeople@SpiritoftheAges.com.

In the meantime, enjoy perusing these wonderful images from Reginald Knowles.

The colour illustrations

Frontispiece The maiden began to be of more courage	The Way to Fairyland The Land of Splendid Dreams which is on the way to Fairyland	The Fairy Queen Fairies take Morning Dew from the Flowers to make the Queen's clothes	The Fairy Baby's Cradle They hang the Leaf Cradle by Cobwebs from a tree
How to go to the Fairy Ball Fairy Queen will send some of her Elf Messengers to invite you	The Fairy Ball The Fairy Musicians