Uzbekistan state world languages university department: english language and literature course paper

Main article: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
In the 19th century, the Robin Hood legend was first specifically adapted for children. Children's editions of the garlands were produced and in 1820, a children's edition of Ritson's Robin Hood collection was published. Children's novels began to appear shortly thereafter. It is not that children did not read Robin Hood stories before, but this is the first appearance of a Robin Hood literature specifically aimed at them. A very influential example of these children's novels was Pierce Egan the Younger's Robin Hood and Little John (1840). This was adapted into French by Alexandre Dumas in Le Prince des Voleurs (1872) and Robin Hood Le Proscrit (1873). Egan made Robin Hood of noble birth but raised by the forestor Gilbert Hood.
Another very popular version for children was Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which influenced accounts of Robin Hood through the 20th century. Pyle's version firmly stamp Robin as a staunch philanthropist, a man who takes from the rich to give to the poor. Nevertheless, the adventures are still more local than national in scope: while King Richard's participation in the Crusades is mentioned in passing, Robin takes no stand against Prince John, and plays no part in raising the ransom to free Richard. These developments are part of the 20th-century Robin Hood myth. Pyle's Robin Hood is a yeoman and not an aristocrat.
The idea of Robin Hood as a high-minded Saxon fighting Norman lords also originates in the 19th century. The most notable contributions to this idea of Robin are Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry's Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre par les Normands (1825) and Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819). In this last work in particular, the modern Robin Hood—'King of Outlaws and prince of good fellows!' as Richard the Lionheart calls him—makes his debut.

Forresters Manuscript

In 1993, a previously unknown manuscript of 21 Robin Hood ballads (including 2 versions of The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield) turned up in an auction house and eventually wound up in the British Library. Called The Forresters Manuscript, after the first and last ballads, which are both titled Robin Hood and the Forresters, it was published in 1998 as Robin Hood: The Forresters Manuscript. It appears to have been written in the 1670s. While all the ballads in the Manuscript had already been known and published during the 17th and 18th centuries (although most of the ballads in the Manuscript have different titles then ones they have listed under the Child Ballads), 13 of the ballads in Forresters are noticeably different from how they appeared in the broadsides and garlands. 9 of these ballads are significantly longer and more elaborate than the versions of the same ballads found in the broadsides and garlands. For 4 of these ballads, the Forresters Manuscript versions are the earliest known versions.

20th century onwards

The 20th century grafted still further details on to the original legends. The 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, portrayed Robin as a hero on a national scale, leading the oppressed Saxons in revolt against their Norman overlords while Richard the Lionheart fought in the Crusades; this movie established itself so definitively that many studios resorted to movies about his son (invented for that purpose) rather than compete with the image of this one.
In 1953, during the McCarthy era, a Republican member of the Indiana Textbook Commission called for a ban of Robin Hood from all Indiana school books for promoting communism because he stole from the rich to give to the poor.

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