I enjoy the language - that's why my wife bought it for me. e.g., "haply thou has forgot it, but I have not." and "I do now crave thy gracious leave that I may serve the lady as her true knight." However, the style is apish, blatantly formulaic and fawning.

Pyle wrote this book in 1891 about the ascendence of Myles Falworth from boyhood in an 'attainted' former Earldom to acclaimed knight and reclaimer of the family estate. The storyline does not carry the reader through the book.

See the 1954 movie adaptation, The Black Shield of Falworth, starring Tony Curtis and his wife Janet Leigh.

I like this book quite a bit. It's not as great as Pyle's Robin Hood (the best!) or his fantastic Book of Pirates, but still good fun. A young lad comes of age in the 14th century, becoming a great knight along the way. Includes some fine plates with Pyle's illustrations, black-and-white except for the frontispiece. ( )

Enjoyable YA adventure, set at the height of the age of chivalry, but written with the stong moral force (and occasional moralizing) of the Victorian era. ( )

I was 12 or 13 when I read this. I don't think I could properly appreciate it at the time, culturally speaking. It offers interesting insight into life at the time, through an act of historical fiction. What I noticed most about the book, at the time, was the author's writing style. He could write a sentence the length of an entire paragraph, and yet have it be grammatically correct. ( )

You really need to read the unabridged edition. There is another one that was watered down to be easier to understand. Don't read that one!

This would make a great movie. It reminds me of a cross between A Knights Tale (movie) and The Hedge Knight (book). ( )