BEST SELLING author of Storyland, Saints and Wild will talk about her new book on the Arthurian Legends next month.

Amy Jeffs is an art historian specialising in the Middle Ages and holds a PhD in art history from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

She has worked in the British Library’s department of ancient, mediaeval and early modern manuscripts, and is also a highly talented print maker working primarily in linocut and wood engraving.

Many of her prints feature in her debut publication Storyland which is a critically acclaimed history of British folklore.

Amy’s latest offering Arthur: A New Life retells the legend of King Arthur with fresh energy, pace and research, from Merlin's conception to the abduction of Guinevere and the ambitious quest for empire.

The legend was cemented in the national imagination by Geoffrey of Monmouth who first wrote about King Arthur in The History of The Kings of Britain in the 1130s, and was examined by current Poet Laureate Simon Armitage in 2013 BBC documentary The Making of King Arthur, when he visited the town’s Priory Rooms which boasts ‘Geoffrey’s Window’.

But this is a new: a larger-than-life warlord, a hero raised by fairies, a leader of the wild hunt, a monster-slayer, lying wounded under the ash cloud, longing to rise again.

Alongside the legends and meticulous research sit more of the author’s beautiful artwork, which combines a love of nature and natural history with her academic training as a mediaevalist and art historian.

She takes part in television documentaries and travels widely to speak about early modern cultures and how they can open our eyes to Britain’s heritage and oldest recorded stories.

At the book talk at St Mary’s Church in Ross Amy being in conversation with historian, author and Gone Medieval podcast host Matt Lewis.

This talk is a joint event between Rossiter Books and The Friends of St Mary's Ross on Wye.

Tickets for the event on Thursday, October 8 at 6.30pm are priced at £9 on sale at Rossiter Books in the Ross and Monmouth and via Ticketsource and rossiterbooks.co.uk.