Idylls of the King

Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Narrated by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Lovers of legends know that this is the finest retelling of the story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table; lovers of literature know that this is the greatest of all 19th- century narrative poems. In Tennyson’s gloriously written tale of swashbuckling feats on and off the jousting field, the honour of maidens, knights, queens and kings is won or lost. Above all, the Quest for the Holy Grail spurs the bravest of knights on to deeds of terrifying foolhardiness and courage.
Lovers of epic poems will also enjoy Bill Homewood’s recordings of Le Morte d’Arthur and The Song of Roland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
• Release date: Aug 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781781984208

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was a British poet. Born into a middle-class family in Somersby, England, Tennyson began writing poems with his brothers as a teenager. In 1827, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, joining a secret society known as the Cambridge Apostles and publishing his first book of poems, a collection of juvenile verse written by Tennyson and his brother Charles. He was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal in 1829 for his poem “Timbuktu” and, in 1830, published Poems Chiefly Lyrical, his debut individual collection. Following the death of his father in 1831, Tennyson withdrew from Cambridge to care for his family. His second volume of poems, The Lady of Shalott (1833), was a critical and commercial failure that put his career on hold for the next decade. That same year, Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam died from a stroke while on holiday in Vienna, an event that shook the young poet and formed the inspiration for his masterpiece, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850). The poem, a long sequence of elegiac lyrics exploring themes of loss and mourning, helped secure Tennyson the position of Poet Laureate, to which he was appointed in 1850 following the death of William Wordsworth. Tennyson would hold the position until the end of his life, making his the longest tenure in British history. With most of his best work behind him, Tennyson continued to write and publish poems, many of which adhered to the requirements of his position by focusing on political and historical themes relevant to the British royal family and peerage. An important bridge between Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelites, Tennyson remains one of Britain’s most popular and influential poets.