Men of Iron

Blake said this book was better than Robin Hood because in addition to all the action there were also "girls". I had to laugh as he explained that there was even a secret rendezvous and that the hero got "busted". Ah well, what is a story about knights without a damsel or two, right?

If Howard Pyle were a corporation, he could have declared some extra dividends simply on the basis of my perfervid consumption of any of his works which I could find "yesterday, when I was young". This rousing tale of young Mile's Falworth's quest for knighthood and his rightful place in society is

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a classic of what was once called "improving fiction for boys", meaning, despite the odd phrasing, that the boys would be improved by the fiction (the fictionb was already good). It doesn't really matter that much of the grit of medievsal life is swept aside in the narrative: the historical info which IS vouchsafed put the "YA" historical fiction of our day to shame.

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I didn't know that this book was as old as "the White Company", but they hang together in my mind. Miles Falworth seeks to recover his family's honour. And of course he does. The 1950's movie "Black Shield of Falworth" was about what you'd expect.

A long, long time ago...grammar school, I believe, we were told that it is generally considered bad form to attempt to write in accented dialog. The exception was if you were very, very good.

Howard Pyle is not very good.

I'm pretty sure he made up a bunch of his own words by adding -eth at the end

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of nearly every verb in character dialog. This was distracting to no end. The story, set in medieval times and focusing on squires and the knights they serve, was completely lost in this lame attempt at contemporary dialog.

I like reading Shakespeare. Pyle is no Shakespeare. Instead of period flavor, the result is complete frustration.

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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).

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

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a sentence the length of an entire paragraph, and yet have it be grammatically correct.

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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 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

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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.

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