Victorian author and collector of a number fairy tales from around the world. Lang most famously wrote Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, where many of the stories that inspired ideas found in the King's Quest games were retold. He also wrote "The Arabian Nights Entertainments" which contained the stories of The Arabian Nights, the Fisherman (and his wife), Seven Voyages of Sinbad, The Adventures of Haroun-al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad, Alladin and the Wonderful Lamp, among other stories that also made their way into KQ lore.
He also co-wrote "The Princess Nobody" which told the story of a princess named Gwendoline, whose name appears to be the inspiration behind Gwendolyn the granddaughter of King Graham in the new King's Quest series.
Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a Scots poet, novelist, and literary critic. Although he did not collect the stories himself from the oral tradition, the extent of his sources, who had collected them originally — with the notable exception of Madame d'Aulnoy — made the collections immensely influential. Lang gave many of the tales their first appearance in English. As acknowledged in the prefaces, although Lang himself made most of the selections, his wife and other translators did a large portion of the translating and retelling of the actual stories. According to Anita Silvey, "The irony of Lang's life and work is that although he wrote for a profession—literary criticism; fiction; poems; books and articles on anthropology, mythology, history, and travel ... he is best recognized for the works he did not write."[1] Many of the books were illustrated by Henry J. Ford, with Lancelot Speed and G. P. Jacomb-Hood also contributing some illustrations.