 While Tom maintained his small stature and remained a figure of comic relief, his story now included more elements from the medieval Arthurian romances and Arthur is treated more seriously and historically in these new versions.The revived Arthurian romance also proved influential in the United States, with such books as Sidney Lanier's "The Boy's King Arthur" (1880) reaching wide audiences and providing inspiration for Mark Twain's satire "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1889).Although the 'Arthur of romance' was sometimes central to these new Arthurian works (as he was in Burne-Jones's "The Sleep of Arthur in Avalon", 1881–1898), on other occasions he reverted to his medieval status and is either marginalised or even missing entirely, with Wagner's Arthurian operas providing a notable instance of the latter.