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Wimsey and Aymon
Dec. 23rd, 2009 12:29 pmI am finally getting around to reading the Lord Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy L. Sayers. The main character endeared himself to me in the first few pages, and for a reason that I think would apply to very few other people. Many of my friends would appreciate the fact that Lord Peter is a lover of and collector of antiquarian books. But I was tickled that he was *particularly* interested in "The Four Sons of Aymon".
"The Four Sons of Aymon" is a little-known entry in "The Matter of France", the tales of Charlemagne and his knights. It dates from the late 12th century, and was quite influential on the later entries in the cycle, such as the "Orlando Furioso". It was translated to English and published by William Caxton in the late 15th century, but its influence in this language has been slight. I xeroxed a copy from microfilm many years ago, and quite enjoyed it. It's more primitive than the later Orlando material, but quite powerful for all that. The anecdote of "death by chessboard" has entered my standard repertoire :-) Recommended to fans of that sort of thing,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tamarinne, especially.
After Caxton, it appears to have gone out of print for centuries. There were two Early English Text Society reprints, in 1884-5 and 1975. If you're affiliated with a subscribing college, you can find Caxton's version at Early English Books Online. Google Books has PDFs of the 19th century reprint here and here.
Hmmm... must poke around a bit more in Google Books... Here's the EETS reprint of Huon of Bordeaux (here's my review of a retelling). And here's an EETS reprint of "Sir Ferumbras", of which I know nothing (yet). Yay Google Books! I hope they get more of this series on-line over time.
"The Four Sons of Aymon" is a little-known entry in "The Matter of France", the tales of Charlemagne and his knights. It dates from the late 12th century, and was quite influential on the later entries in the cycle, such as the "Orlando Furioso". It was translated to English and published by William Caxton in the late 15th century, but its influence in this language has been slight. I xeroxed a copy from microfilm many years ago, and quite enjoyed it. It's more primitive than the later Orlando material, but quite powerful for all that. The anecdote of "death by chessboard" has entered my standard repertoire :-) Recommended to fans of that sort of thing,
tamarinne, especially.After Caxton, it appears to have gone out of print for centuries. There were two Early English Text Society reprints, in 1884-5 and 1975. If you're affiliated with a subscribing college, you can find Caxton's version at Early English Books Online. Google Books has PDFs of the 19th century reprint here and here.
Hmmm... must poke around a bit more in Google Books... Here's the EETS reprint of Huon of Bordeaux (here's my review of a retelling). And here's an EETS reprint of "Sir Ferumbras", of which I know nothing (yet). Yay Google Books! I hope they get more of this series on-line over time.
