Somewhere in the mash, I remembered the quirky writing style of White with occasionally soaring passages (which, I suppose you could claim for White) and a much more compelling plotline. I assume that I somehow confused aspects of this novel with some of a few others (possibly Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy). Granted, I was reading a number of similar books at the same time–a time during which I was not recording my reading adventures. I have many times since then listed The Once and Future King as one of my favorite books. I was given a dog-eared copy by my aunt, who discovered that I was interested in Arthurian legend a number of years ago and cleared out her 1970s yellowed copies and gifted them to me. I had read The Once and Future King Before. The Once and Future King remains his most enduring work. He has been influential in the development of fantasy writing, from Harry Potter to Neil Gaiman. “Tim”‘s interests included Malory’s La Morte de Arthur, falconry, natural history, and psychology, which are all obvious in his writing.

White was born Terence Hanbury White to English parents in India in 1906, and was educated in England. The Book of Merlyn was always meant to be the fifth part of the series, but White’s publisher thought otherwise. This five-part series (four of which are included in The Once and Future King) was published as a complete novel, in 1958, and The Book of Merlyn posthumously and largely unedited, in 1977. The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlyn, by T.H.

The once and future king author