Ivanhoe
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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Buy of the Kindle edition includes wireless manner of language.
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This was the first Sir Walter Scott novel I’d ever read, and I was hooked! The plot is epic, the characters are iconic and vibrant, and the details are lush and engrossing. Scott is so entertaining that the book regularly veers into a sort of sensationalist “pulp fiction” kind of vibe, but that’s part of the charm. The real genius of this tale is the characters–they are all intelligently constructed and very likeable. The romantic heroes have foibles and the villans have dignity, and best of all, there are two major female leads with lots of personality and volition. A must-read!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This the first,the classic, novelized medieval Romance. Written the same year as Queen Victoria’s birth, it gave us much of our modern conception of medieval tournaments, King John, Robin Hood, Richard Coeur de Lion, etc. (I realize I stretch things a bit by calling Sir Walter Scott “modern,” but I speak only by comparison with medieval ballads, King Arthur, Robin Hood legends, etc.)
If you’ve ever thought “ok, that was cool” as Robin Hood split an arrow with another arrow at the Fantastic Archery Tournament, or wondered where the thought of Robin Hood as the defender of Saxon yeomanry against the Villainous John of Anjou, Regent for the absent Richard, got its start — it ongoing here.
The book isn’t all about Robin Hood, though; mostly, it’s about Knights and Tournaments and foul Norman oppressors. There’s a tournament, a examination by combat, a castle seige, a small bit of anti-racist message (in the person of a gorgeous and noble-in-spirit Jewish beauty unjustly maligned and accused of witchcraft), multiple anonymous knights (including a Black Knight!), and in fleeting all the vital highlights of medieval ballads, conveniently arranged in the format of a past novel.
Scott’s historiography is a small off (for example, at one point a character pretends to be a Franciscan monk, when the order wasn’t founded until about twenty years after the novel’s action takes place), but Scott does make a real effort to avoid most anachronisms (moreso than many writers of “past novels”). This kindle edition also includes Scott’s introduction and notes, which show that he place real effort into basing many of the events in his book on excerpts from period ballads and tales (rearranging them, of course, as per his authorial prerogative).
This one’s a classic for a reason. Entertaining, archetypal, and with massive influence on everything since, from Howard Pyle to Errol Flynn to video games like “Defender of the Crown.” The prose style might be a small offputting to more sensitive modern readers — it was, after all, written the same year that Queen Victoria was born, and is a small dry in some places and a small overblown in others — but if you can get past that, you’ll find a classic. Delight in.
[If the reader wishes more in this vein, I'd point him, as mentioned above, to Howard Pyle's _The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood_, also available for free online; make sure to find the version with Pyle's original illustrations].
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5