A lot of brainless unicorns swaggering about and calling themselves educated just because they can push each other off a horse with a bit of a stick! It makes me tired.
A series of four novels1 by T. H. White published between 1938-1940, during a turbulent time in the world.
Largely based off of Morte D’Arthur, the story has a loosely anachronistic tone, with the narrator’s voice often referencing or discussing more modern concepts and events, and a more on the nose fictional tone as well than other previous works. T. H. White has an anti-war message (and several other messages) that he’s not worried about leaking into the book.
The first book, The Sword in the Stone was adapted into a 1963 Disney movie of the same name, though it’s troubled development and mixed release limited future development.
Because of the movie in particular, this adaption has become a common introductory point to the legend for the modern age. It’s old enough that the variations it made to the story still have the feeling of “canonicity” by most audiences, but more approachable than older works.
Greg Stafford mentioned it as the suggested introduction for Pendragon and the GPC and it’s a major influence to the timeline of events, even if that leans more towards Morte D’Arthur where the details are directly in conflict. It’s less of an influence in my construction of the timeline, simply because this wasn’t my introduction and I haven’t read it all - but it’s still a formative work in the canon.
Footnotes
-
Also the posthumously published The Book of Merlyn which was originally conceived as fitting into the last book. ↩