MERLIN'S BOOKE Ace Books 1986 ISBN# 0-441-52552-0 Ace paperback ISBN# 0-916595-03-X SteelDragon hardcover unsigned ISBN# 0-916595-04-8 SteelDragon hardcover signed edition Published for adults.

Stories and poems all centering on the great wizard, Merlin. Some are historical, some completely magical. From his birth to his death--and beyond. A few of the stories were published first in F&SF Magazine, and a number of poems and stories have been subsequently reprinted in textbooks and anthologies. I have used some of the stories for the starting point of children's novels--The Dragon's Boy and the Young Merlin Trilogy (Passager and Hobby especially) came from short storiesin the collection. I am currently working on Sword of the Rightful King, which also got its start in a Merlin's Booke story. The book is cited often in Arthruian lists . SteelDragon Press, a small press run by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, did two hardcover editions of MERLIN'S BOOKE, one a plain hardcover, the second with endpapers and signed by Tom Canty and Jane. Nominated for the 1987 Mythopoeic Award

       Out of print.

What reviewers have said: "Yolen's limpid prose gains an aura of otherness by her skillful use of archaisms. Arthurian and fantasy collections will welcome Merlin's Booke ." -- Library Journal

"Yolen's evocative prose and poetry are equally based on scholarship and her intuitive sense of psychological rightness: She violates nothing we think we know about Merlin, the man or the myth. The homely and the mystical are woven together especially well in 'The Sword and the Stone,' where Merlin learns something about women and the power of a pat of well-placed butter, and in 'Dragon's Boy,' a moving reminder of the meaning of 'the child is father of the man,' and a classic of a special kind in Yolen's luminous contribution to the Arthurian canon." -- The Christian Science Monitor

An interview about my Arthurian stories.

 

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