On Wednesday I posted on Mary Stewart’s The Hollow Hills and how I feel it is still standing up well to the test of time.

I also mentioned that I regard “her Arthurian Fantasy trilogy, The Crystal Cave (1970), The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment (1979) … [as] … one of the early defining works in the swathe of Arthurian-based works for adult readers that dominated 1970s and 1980s Fantasy literature—with the theme continuing to maintain traction through into the 1990s.”

The Arthurian cycle was known as “the Matter of Britain” in the Middle Ages — but Mary Stewart’s trilogy was not quite the first novelization for adults that relooked at the material  in the context of “the Roman-British setting (in the early years of the Saxon invasions), the use of Celtic mythology, and realism in preference to the chivalric, romanticised Victorian and medieval traditions.”

Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novel,  Sword At Sunset — which effectively follows on from her Carnegie Award-winning YA novel, The Lantern Bearers — was published in 1963 and traverses similar ground, albeit without the magic and with Arthur, rather than Merlin, as the point of view character. Arguably, though, Mary Stewart’s trilogy has been more influential, certainly in terms of Fantasy fiction.

The next major work in the Roman-British, Celtic mythos, and historically-influenced canon, was Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, published in 1983. It’s another great story, and this time the main point of view character is Morgan Le Fay, with a cast of strong, supporting women characters, from Vivian, portrayed as the Lady of the Lake, to Nimue, and Guinivere.

Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar trilogy, comprising The Summer Tree (194), The Wandering Fire (1986), and The Darkest Road (1986), establishes a Celtic-infused alternate world (Fionavar) that intersects with our world — perhaps most significantly in that the triangular love stry of Arthur, Guinivere, and Lancelot becomes central to the story. So although not “about” the “Matter of Britain”, it is certainly strongly informed by it.

Persia Woolley’s Guinevere trilogy appeared in 1987 (Child of the Northern Spring), 1991 (Queen of the Summer Stars), and 1993 (Guinevere, The Legend in Autumn) respectively. Again, this version of the “Matter of Britain” is set in the twilight of Roman Britain, where Arthur and those who support him are trying to stem the tide of Saxon invasion.

Patricia Kennealy’s contemporaneous  The Tale of Arthur, another trilogy that commenced with The Hawk’s Gray Feather  in 1990, stuck with the Celtic slant on the Arthurian cycle, but made it Science Fictional with a mythological backstory that saw the Kelts venture into space, founding the kingdom of Keltia. The central protagonist is the bard, Taliesin, and the subsequent books in the trilogy are The Oak Above the Kings (1994) and The Hedge of Mist (1996.)

Looking at this list, I can see that the tradition of Arthurian-influenced Fantasy continued well into the 1990s. And this is far from being a compleat list of books published during that era — and I haven’t even started on Young Adult and Junior fiction. I might have to come back to those in the next day or so.