A debut work of historical fiction reexamines an age-old romance.

A debut novel for grown-ups began in the children’s section of Bainbridge Library.

Island author Elsa Watson, who reads April 22 from her first work of historical fiction, “Maid Marian,” turned to kids’ books to research a work about the heroine who appears in tales of Robin Hood, the 12th century legendary outlaw who poached the king’s deer in Sherwood Forest.

“The children’s library has a ton of great books on the Middle Ages that are full of pictures,” Watson said, “and that explain things in the clearest, simplest kind of way: ‘These were the early Middle Ages, this is what life was like then, this is what it was like to live in a castle.’”

Watson’s interest in Maid Marian was piqued by movie versions that ranged from the 1922 film starring Douglas Fairbanks to the Disney animation.

“I was always disappointed because the story was really about Robin Hood, every time,” she said. “Maid Marian was sort of a ‘plant device,’ something for Robin Hood to work toward, fight for. You didn’t get a lot about her story.”

Watson has made other changes to the Robin Hood story.

While the Merry Men in Watson’s novel, beloved outlaws like Will Scarlet, Little John and Friar Tuck, will be familiar to many readers, some plot points and characters may not be – although not necessarily because they are the Watson’s inventions.

“There is no one, single Robin Hood story,” Watson said. “The story evolved as a collection of songs people used to sing for entertainment and some of them were written much later than others, so there are compilations of songs and some of them contradict each other.”

Robin Hood’s class affiliation is one ambiguous point in the cycle of popular tales refined and enlarged from the 1100s to the mid-16th century.

In some versions, the green-clad outlaw is a Norman noble who accompanied King Richard the Lionhearted on a Crusade.

In others, he is a Saxon farmer who opposed the Norman lords who dominated England after the Norman Conquest of 1066.

“The movies vary on this point,” Watson said. “You have to pick and choose.”

Watson had to make decisions about her heroine, as well.

“Often in movies, she is a Norman noble who falls for this sort of rugged Saxon hero who is Robin Hood,” she said. “And that seemed interesting to me, the idea of the princess who falls in love with the farmhand.”

Maid Marian is Marian Fitzwater, a wealthy young widow, when she encounters Robin Hood, already a confirmed outlaw.

The pair strike up a romance in the greensward – but the relationship is framed by the wealth of historical detail that Watson accrued during her two-part stint at the library.

After weeks reading the stories for children, Watson “graduated” upstairs to books for adult readers, and the task of outlining.

She was determined not to fall into the trap of her previous five unpublished works – what she calls “practice novels.”

“I cooked up a story in my head, and when I actually sat down to write it, it was only 100 pages long when I wanted it to be 200,” she said. “So now I outline and then research all the way through writing a book. I do it to keep my head in the era and make sure I’m not working off my old, boring notes.”

Watson began writing in December of 2001 and finished the first draft five months later.

By mid-summer 2002, Watson had an agent in New York, who, within a few months, had sold the book to Crown Publishers.

“I was surprised at how quickly they were able to sell it,” she said. “but when I signed on with the agent, it felt like I had been working on it for a long, long time. It was a real relief to hand the project over to them.”

While Watson believes her book could be considered part of the new genre of revisionist historical fiction re-examining lives of women, she doesn’t yet know where her upcoming projects will fall along that genre’s continuum from near-romance novel to literary fiction.

But one thing she knows for sure is that research will play a central role in writing more books.

“I would hate to close any doors,” she said, “but I’m very interested in writing fiction that starts with work in the library and learning about something I otherwise don’t know about.”

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Island author Elsa Watson reads from her debut novel, “Maid Marian,” 7:30 p.m. April 22 at Eagle Harbor Book Company. The reading is free and open to the public.

Call 842-5332 for more information.