T.H. White's 'The Once and Future King.'

T. H. White's magnum opus is something of a literary oddity. The author himself was not sure whether he had written the work for children or adults; although the Arthurian legends have become something of an academic industry these days - fuelled in part by Brewer's respected series of which this volume is a recent addition - and White's novel is immensely popular, there has been very little scholarly attention paid to it; although it was substantially revised, the form which remains in most peoples' minds even if they have not seen the complete film, is Wait Disney's Sword in the Stone cartoon, unashamedly for children and based on the 1939 text before the nasty additions. …