King Arthur was a huge part of my childhood, along with Robin Hood, and Andrew Lang's Fairy books. So I was surprised to find, when I asked my middle school students about their King Arthur knowledge, that most of them didn't know these stories at all!
There are some great modern collections of King Arthur stories for younger readers, mostly based on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. (That does mean that other Arthur stories tend to get left out... There are huge numbers of medieval and Renaissance-era Arthur stories, in over a dozen languages, from over a dozen countries in Europe. I'll talk about them here on the blog in future.) You can find many of these collections in your local library, in the children's or YA sections of your local used bookstore, or (of course) on Amazon.
The most famous collections in English are probably Roger Lancelyn Green's King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, or Howard Pyle's numerous books of King Arthur stories. You can find Pyle's Arthurian works collected in The Tale of Camelot; although I'll warn you that the print is pretty small, so you may be better off looking for separate editions of his books. His first book is called King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. (Can we not all use the same title, please?) Pyle incorporates some of the old Welsh stories of Arthur and company in his later books, like the tale of Geraint and Enid.
I have a soft spot for the collection by Elizabeth Lodor Merchant, illustrated by Frank Godwin: King Arthur and His Knights. This is the one I grew up with. It's easy to read and includes a lot of the more obscure Malory stories. It has great black and white drawings; my favorite illustration shows a haughty lady riding her horse with a knight alongside her, giving her a curious sidelong expression. It's a story in itself! If you've read George, the Shield, and the Veiled Lady, you might enjoy knowing that the knight in this picture is the model for Sir Calydor When Sir Calydor gets his own book in my Faerie Queen series (probably Book 7), you'll meet a character very much like this proud lady, as well.
If you're looking for a great illustrated edition of Arthur stories, your best bet is The Boy's King Arthur by Sidney Lanier, illustrated by NC Wyeth. I don't like Lanier's text quite as much as Merchant's, but, as always, Wyeth's illustrations are incredible. He painted them in oils, so they have a depth and texture that pen and ink drawings just can't replicate. He also put a lot of effort into the historical details of the armor, people, and places in his paintings.
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