The Lady of Shalott is a Victorian ballad by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is loosely based on the Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolat, as recounted in a thirteenth-century Italian novella titled Donna di Scalotta. Tennyson wrote two versions of the poem, one published in 1833, of 20 stanzas, the other in 1842, of 19 stanzas. In 1881 Dodd, Mead and Company commissioned Pyle to illustrate with color drawings two small children's books, The Lady of Shalott and Yankee Doodle. These projects, the first entire volumes that he illustrated, were among the earliest American experiments in color-printed books for children.