The Once and Future King by T.H. White

[Nightspore]

The 1958 novel The Once and Future King was comprised of three earlier novels (including The Sword in the Stone) & an extra book, The Ill-Made Knight. I believe there is also a fifth book (The Book of Merlyn) added later in some editions.

I remember reading The Sword in the Stone at school. A revised version is included in The Once and Future King & comprises the first section.

Although it can be viewed as juvenilia (particularly The Sword in the Stone) it is also an interesting take on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur & some people suggest that The Once and Future King is a statement about WWII.

I read the The Once and Future King several years ago & quite enjoyed it. I have not read The Book of Merlyn, although I have actually read Malory.

Has anyone any opinions on The Once and Future King?

 

[jastius]

T. H. White was brilliant. he opened up the Arthurian mythos for a new generation.
I read Mallory first, and then knights of the round table. Once and Future King was one of the ones they read us at school. I have read it about five times and each time it is a different experience. Robin Hood and his Lady as the Fair Folk of the forest. The Hunt scene. Merlyn's lessons..
It gives back that sense of innocence and wonder we too cheaply barter away.

 

[Perpetual Man]

I loved The Once and Future King, but then I've been reading about the Arthurian legends for as long as I can remember.

I started with a childrens book, by (I think) a writer called Roger Lancelyn Green, and my interest grew from there. I've read far too many fictional and 'factual' books to remember, but T H White sticks out. I read it a couple of times, and have read The Book of Merlyn. It seems to stick out a bit as it is a lot more adult, and slower, more serious than the others, but it is still worth a read.

As a whole the Once and Future King is an excellent book, and for me forms part of one of the key Arthurian works (alongside Mallory and Tennyson)

 

[Nightspore]

T. H. White was brilliant. he opened up the Arthurian mythos for a new generation.
I read Mallory first, and then knights of the round table. Once and Future King was one of the ones they read us at school. I have read it about five times and each time it is a different experience. Robin Hood and his Lady as the Fair Folk of the forest. The Hunt scene. Merlyn's lessons..
It gives back that sense of innocence and wonder we too cheaply barter away.

Yes, I think it did bring back some of that wonder back for me when I read it.

 

[Nightspore]

I loved The Once and Future King, but then I've been reading about the Arthurian legends for as long as I can remember.

I started with a childrens book, by (I think) a writer called Roger Lancelyn Green, and my interest grew from there. I've read far too many fictional and 'factual' books to remember, but T H White sticks out. I read it a couple of times, and have read The Book of Merlyn. It seems to stick out a bit as it is a lot more adult, and slower, more serious than the others, but it is still worth a read.

As a whole the Once and Future King is an excellent book, and for me forms part of one of the key Arthurian works (alongside Mallory and Tennyson)

I believe that Malory hasn't been out of print since he was first published in 1485.

 

[Extollager]

I use the World's Classics paperback of Malory's Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript in a class. We read about 3/5. We skip Arthur's war with Rome and the Tristram material. The World's Classics edition makes some cuts as compared with the two-volume Penguin Classics offering of Caxton's edition of Malory (which I've read too). I've read The Once and Future King more than once, but the last time must have been around 1980!

 

[Nightspore]

I use the World's Classics paperback of Malory's Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript in a class. We read about 3/5. We skip Arthur's war with Rome and the Tristram material. The World's Classics edition makes some cuts as compared with the two-volume Penguin Classics offering of Caxton's edition of Malory (which I've read too). I've read The Once and Future King more than once, but the last time must have been around 1980!

Interestingly, I've been re-reading Tennyson's Idylls of the King.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Another Arthurian fan - one of my most treasured posessions is a copy of Mallory given to me by my brother. I love The once and Future King and liked that Disney used it as a base because it's a timeless telling. I also loved Zimmer Bradley's female take on it and enjoyed Lawhead's Celtic-tinged telling.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I haven't read it in a long time. I used to read it often. It's still a book I love very much.

It gives back that sense of innocence and wonder we too cheaply barter away.

I can think of few books that have been capable of instilling that sense of wonder so effectively as TOAFK did the first time I read it, which was when I was in High School. Parts of it made me cry every single time I read it. Maybe they still would.

Later, I read his original version of The Sword in the Stone (the one with Madam Mim, and without the ants and geese) and the original version of The Queen of Air and Darkness, entitled The Witch in the Wood, which in spite of its humor is a very painful book to read -- painful in the emotional reactions it produces.

I can't count the number of books I've read that were based on the Arthurian legends, but despite the (intentional) anachronisms, this one remains my favorite.

 

[BAYLOR]

I liked his take on Merlin.

 

[Karapace]

The 1958 novel The Once and Future King was comprised of three earlier novels (including The Sword in the Stone) & an extra book, The Ill-Made Knight. I believe there is also a fifth book (The Book of Merlyn) added later in some editions.

I remember reading The Sword in the Stone at school. A revised version is included in The Once and Future King & comprises the first section.

Although it can be viewed as juvenilia (particularly The Sword in the Stone) it is also an interesting take on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur & some people suggest that The Once and Future King is a statement about WWII.

I read the The Once and Future King several years ago & quite enjoyed it. I have not read The Book of Merlyn, although I have actually read Malory.

Has anyone any opinions on The Once and Future King?

I thoroughly enjoyed the once and future king. I liked how the storytelling seemed to become more adult as Arthur did. Certainly on of the more memorable re-tellings of Morte d'Arthur

 

[Pyan]

I read this in my early teens, and then got lured into The White Goddess, by Robert Graves. It's a good take on The Matter of Britain.

 

[BAYLOR]

I thoroughly enjoyed the once and future king. I liked how the storytelling seemed to become more adult as Arthur did. Certainly on of the more memorable re-tellings of Morte d'Arthur

Of further interest
The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart
1. The Crystal Cave
2. The Hollow Hills
3. The Last Enchantment

Sword at Sunset by Rosemarie Sutcilf

The Dragon Lord by David Drake

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

1. The Crystal Cave
2. The Hollow Hills
3. The Last Enchantment

And a fourth book, not exactly a sequel, The Wicked Day.

 

[Karapace]

I enjoyed them too. Also Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon

 

[BAYLOR]

I enjoyed them too. Also Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon

Merlin and Company by Álvaro Cunqueiro