One cannot consider a present-day Robin Hood retelling without first considering the immense popularity and influence that Howard Pyle's 1883 retelling, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (please see separate entry) has enjoyed. For those writers who follow Howard Pyle, and are subsequently influenced by his work, his work (which pointedly leaves out the character of Maid Marian) has been problematic—especially for modern women writers who are interested in the legend of Robin Hood, the young adult audience, and in current notions of female heroism such as we have in the writing of Robin McKinley and Theresa Tomlinson.

Accordingly, McKinley's The Outlaws of Sherwood (1988) characterizes Maid Marian not only in relationship to men but in partnership with them. While this is a welcome change of pace, a relief, to the contemporary reader of the Robin Hood legend, it still falls short of achieving the femalecentered...