White can be remarkably funny, and he deftly employs humor to create a whimsical (and often anachronistic) alternative to the historical “dark ages” with which most readers are acquainted. Initially the book is concerned with his “eddication” by Merlyn and is literally and figuratively magical.

Īs for the story, it begins with a young “hero worshipper” called “the Wart, because it more or less rhymed with Art, which was short for his real name.” Young Arthur is a sweet, unassuming boy blissfully unaware of his destiny to become Britain’s greatest and most tragic king. Rowling, opens a new window, Gregory Maguire, opens a new window, Neil Gaiman, opens a new window. The book has been tremendously influential, serving as the source material for Disney’s The Sword in the Stone, opens a new window and Camelot, opens a new window, the Lerner and Lowe musical, and inspiring among others J.K. ¹ He called the tetralogy The Once and Future King, and odds are you’re familiar with some of its content. It compiled three of White’s Arthurian works from almost two decades earlier, The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, and The Ill-Made Knight, and added a fourth book, The Candle in the Wind. Published in 1958, The Once and Future King is an all at once hysterical, beautiful, silly, philosophical, joyous, and heartbreaking retelling of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, opens a new window. White’s The Once and Future King, opens a new window, one of my very favorite books and the Arthurian apple of my eye. Inspired by Leah’s look at some new and old Arthurian classics earlier this year, opens a new window, I decided to revisit T.

The once and future king book