T.H. White

Terence Hanbury White was an English author, best known for his retelling of Arthurian legends.Born in Bombay in 1906, White had a troubled childhood. While studying at Cambridge, he wrote his thesis on Malory’s Le Mort d’Arthur, a 15th century Middle English prose piece about the legends of King Arthur. White began writing science fiction novels in the 1930s. However, in 1937, he picked up Le Mort d’Arthur once again, and was inspired to write The Sword in the Stone, which he described as a preface to Malory’s work. Published in 1938, the novel tells the story of King Arthur’s boyhood. In 1939, White moved to Ireland, where he lived as a conscientious objector during the Second World War, before settling on the Channel Island of Alderney after the war’s end. He lived there for the rest of his life, and continued to write fiction and non-fiction, including further instalments of the Once and Future King series.White died of heart failure in 1964 on a ship in Greece, while en route to Alderney. The conclusion of the Once and Future King series was published posthumously in 1977.