I couldn’t tell you when I first came across Arthur.
In a sense, I think his story seeped into my psyche gradually over the years, tidbits told here and there.
Much of what I knew about him, growing up, came from the BBC fantasy drama Merlin, first broadcast in 2008, while more recently I’ve enjoyed the Arthur-adjacent book series ‘The Morgan Trilogy’ by Sophie Keetch.
‘Arthur: A New Life’ by Dr Amy Jeffs, bestselling author of titles such as Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain (2021) and Saints: A New Legendary of Heroes, Humans and Magic (2024) offers a new telling of his tale, weaving together source material from across medieval Europe, alongside critical commentaries and original linocut illustrations.1
After a foreword introducing the inspiration and methodology for the book, it moves sequentially through stories about Arthur and his life, beginning with the origins of his ancestors and others who feature prominently in the narratives. It reads like a story, retold in Jeffs’s own words and occasionally interspersed with asides that provide background information on the sources, their relationship to Arthur, and their own life histories.
The beauty of this book lies in the grip its narrative has on the reader from its very first pages, drawn from a deep knowledge of the original sources. As explained by Jeffs in our discussion (detailed in full at the end of this post), the medieval stories about Arthur are, themselves, deeply engaging; they need little adaptation to appeal to a modern audience. Jeffs’s strength here is her ability to blend the varying narratives together, much as medieval authors did with their own material.
Jeffs also does well to introduce the reader to the technical details of the surviving manuscript corpus without overwhelming the narrative flow. This is essential to understanding how the Arthur legends developed and were manipulated over time but for a book which aims to be ‘a new life’ in the style of its medieval forbears, Jeffs manages to illuminate us without getting bogged down.
It has been a long time since I have read a book like this. Perhaps a comparison would be the recent release by Dr Jess Venner, The Lost Voices of Pompeii: rather than providing a technical history of the Arthurian legends, Jeffs walks her readers through the narratives in real time, exposing us to the stories as their original hearers would have been. We are immersed in the sensory and mythological landscape of the early medieval world. It is to the commentaries and extensive further reading section, much like the footnotes of Venner’s work, that we must turn if we want to explore the evidence and historiography of Arthur’s legends.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Arthur, finishing it in just three days. Though many of the stories were familiar, I appreciated the inclusion of those that are less so, drawn from more obscure sources that I hadn’t come across. I was also drawn in by the continental shift in the stories related to Arthur’s later life; my knowledge of him thus far had been restricted to his activities in Britain, but Jeffs’s narrative introduced me for the first time to his relationship with Rome.
If you are interested in understanding more about the sources behind the legend, as well as reading the legends as they may have been experienced by their original hearers, I cannot recommend Arthur enough. It is perfect both for the newbie and for the already invested, with a good balance of technical and explanatory detail.
Don’t just take my word for it, however! Behind the paywall, I am delighted to share an exclusive conversation I had with Dr Amy Jeffs a few weeks ago, in which we talked about Arthur, her love of the early medieval aesthetic, and the centrality of imagery to her process as a historian. I was honoured to speak with her, and hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. It’s long - so grab a cup of coffee (or anything else that takes your fancy) and settle in…
Have you been tempted to pick up a copy of Arthur: A New Life by Dr Amy Jeffs? Do let me know in the comments, and share this post with anyone you think might be interested in the book.
HB. Amy, thank you so much for joining us at Medieval Musings to discuss your upcoming book, Arthur: A New Life. In your own words, how would you describe Arthur?
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