"The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood" is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. The author compiled the traditional Robin Hood ballads into a coherent narrative. To make the book suitable for contemporary readers and children, Pyle adapted the late Middle English of the ballads into an understandable dialect. As a result, they took the subject of Robin Hood, which had been increasingly popular through the 19th century, in a new direction that influenced later writers, artists, and filmmakers through the next century.