The Once and Future King
T. H. White's modern retelling of the Matter of Britain begins with a small orphaned boy nicknamed the Wart, who lives at Sir Ector's castle in the Forest Sauvage and is being tutored by an absent-minded old wizard called Merlyn. The Sword in the Stone, the first of four sections, follows Wart's transformations into fish and ant and goose as Merlyn teaches him what it means to govern. The remaining books, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind, follow Wart, now King Arthur, through the founding of the Round Table, the love of Lancelot and Guenever, the slow corruption of his half-sister Morgause's sons, and the final ruinous war with Mordred. Drawn from Sir Thomas Malory and assembled across the years before and during the Second World War, White's 1958 omnibus is one of the great twentieth-century English novels and the source of nearly every modern Arthur retelling.
What you might want to know about The Once and Future King
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
T. H. White retells the legend of King Arthur from the boyhood of the Wart, who is tutored by the wizard Merlyn through a series of animal lives, to his pulling of the sword from the stone, his marriage to Guenever, the long love between her and Lancelot, and the slow ruin of the Round Table.
The Once and Future King was written by T.H. White, with the four constituent novels published between 1938 and 1958. The Sword in the Stone (1938) is the first; the omnibus was completed in 1958.
Yes. Disney's 1963 animated film The Sword in the Stone is based on the first part of T.H. White's The Once and Future King. The Disney film is a much lighter take than the original, which becomes increasingly tragic.
The Once and Future King is 654 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Once and Future King takes most readers 10 to 14 hours to finish.
The Once and Future King is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
The Once and Future King is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
