The Sword in the Stone, by T. H. White. Endpapers by Robert
Lawson, Decorations by T. H. White.
The only date inside is “1939” and I must take it as
accurate; probably a book club edition, as it was a Book-of-the-Month Club
selection at the time. I read the book itself in middle school; I remember
reading it at lunchtime in the Drama room. Of course, I had seen the Disney
movie and been enchanted, but this was a whole other experience. Full of whimsy
and adventure, and White’s incomparable version of Merlyn. “The best thing for
being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn
something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and
trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the
disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world
about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the
sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn
why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can
never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust,
and never dream of regretting.” This is the version of the book before it was
rewritten for “The Once and Future King.”
Ranking: Oh, So Essential.
File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Hardback.
The Sword in the Stone, by T. H. White. Cover by Alan Lee.
I only found out fairly recently that the original Collier
edition of this book was different from the version edited for American
consumption, rather like Rowling’s Harry Potter books at a later date. This is
a reprint of that version, and very surprising and interesting I found it too.
Not too different, but interesting differences.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Fantasy. Novel. Softcover.
The Once and Future King, by T. H. White.
For a long while I only had paperback copies of this book,
first one with the horrible romance-novel cover of the poster of Camelot, then
the more acceptable version with a Frederic Marvin cover. I was glad to finally
get this edition at a San Marcos book sale recently. It is an 18th
printing, and I can’t help but feel it is much older than the “1980” gift inscription
inside, but after 1963, because it mentions White’s death. The impact of this
book both on fantasy literature and popular culture in general is even now hard
to calculate. Growing ever more serious from the buffoonery of ‘The Sword in
the Stone’ (here rewritten to include ants and geese, replacing Madame Mim and
Galapas the Giant) to the stark tragedy of ‘The Candle in the Wind’, this was
White’s magnum opus. There is some age and repair on this copy.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Novel. Historical Fantasy. Hardback.
The Book of
Merlyn, by T. H. White. Illustrations by Trevor Stubley. Prologue by Sylvia
Townsend Warner.
The release of this book was a big deal when I was just starting high school. The ‘lost chapter’ had long been a matter of lore among White enthusiasts. It coincided very well with the new surge of Fantasy that was taking place just then. It was supposed to be the concluding book in a teratology – a five book series – but when his editors wouldn’t accept it (partly because of post-war paper shortages) he jammed some parts into the rewrites of ‘The Once and Future King’ rather than lose them. He says he suddenly saw that the theme of his Arthurian books was finding an antidote to war, and that animals do not have war, so bringing Arthur and Merlyn and the animals from the first book back to examine the question would bring the story full circle, ‘perfect and rounded and whole’. The book suffers a bit from lacking an author’s final polish. It is Warner, I think, who suggested reading the original ‘Sword’ first, then the next three books of ‘King’, and then ‘Book’ to get an idea of what White originally wanted. [Lacks this jacket.]
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Fantasy. Philosophy. Novel. Hardback.
The
Maharajah and Other Stories, by T. H. White.
A collection
of his short fictions, including ‘The Troll’, which Mrs. Rector read to us in
middle school. What was that class called? [John says it was simply ‘Ghost
Stories’] White’s imagination is rather dark, and most of these tales are grim
and a bit tragic, when they are not ironically amused. I bought this copy in
the sale bin at Hastings, long ago.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code:
Short Stories. Anthology. Hardback.
Letters to a
Friend, by T. H. White. Selected and Edited by Francois Gallix.
“Presents a
selection of the correspondence between White and L. J. Potts, the author's
mentor, advisor, critic, and devoted friend from White's second year at
Cambridge to the end of Potts's life.” – Google Books. Represents just a
remnant of survivors, as most of the correspondence between White and Potts was
lost thanks to storage in a leaky garden shed. White based much of the
character of Merlyn in his Arthurian books on his old teacher and confidant.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code:
Letters. Literature/Biography. Hardback.
England Have
My Bones, by T. H. White.
A diary in
the form of novel about White’s efforts learning to hunt, to fish, to fly an
airplane, and to drive a car (it ends with an unfortunate car accident) all
told with an eye to the details of his personal experiences and the nature
around him. Illustrated by the author.
Ranking:
Keeper.
File Code:
Autobiography. Hardback.
The Goshawk,
by T. H. White. Illustrated by the Author.
T. H. White
himself was aware that he was a man of many manias and enthusiasm, entering
into each, one gaining a working knowledge (if seldom an expert knowledge) of
each, then picking up the next like a new toy. Among his more permanent hobbies
was as an austringer, or trainer of hawking birds. This book records his first
efforts as such, with a goshawk he named Gos, and which he tried to train
according to a medieval manual and method. This was much more complicated than
it needed to be (according to modern falconers) but gave him great insight for
use in his Arthurian stories.
Ranking:
Keeper.
File Code:
Natural History. Novel. Softcover.
The Book of
Beasts, by T. H. White. Illustrated by pictures from Medieval manuscripts.
“Of The
Book of Beasts, White writes: "No Latin prose bestiary has ever
before been printed, even in Latin. This is the first
and only English translation in print." The bestiary was
a bestseller in the Middle Ages, a kind of natural history cum-zoological
survey that presumed to describe the animals of the world and to point out the
human traits they exemplified. Combining the surprisingly accurate with the
endearingly phantasmagorical, the bestiarists came up with a bewildering array
of real and exotic creatures. The behavior or attributes of the animals often
functioned as a metaphor for teaching religious, moral, and political precepts.
In addition to a multitude of real mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish,
described here with varying degrees of zoological accuracy, the bestiarist introduces
a swarm of fanciful denizens thought to haunt the Dark Ages: manticore, a
creature with a man's face, a lion's body, and a ravenous appetite for human
flesh; dragon or draco, the biggest serpent
and the embodiment of the Devil; amphivia, a fish that could
walk on land and swim in the sea; jaculus, a flying serpent;
the familiar phoenix; the griffin; and other exotic
fauna. Much of the charm of this edition lies in the copious footnotes compiled
by T. H. White. With immense erudition, wit, grace, and a singular lack of
condescension, the author illuminates literary, scientific, historical,
linguistic, and other aspects of the bestiarist's catalog. He further enhances
the volume with informative discussions of the history of the bestiary from its
origins in remote oral traditions; through Herodotus, Pliny and Aristotle;
during the medieval period and the Renaissance; and up to Sir Thomas
Browne's Vulgar Errors (1646). Both amusing and amazing, The
Book of Beasts is not only a rich survey of the proto-zoology on which
much of our later science is based, but also a revealing, illustrated
examination of how pre-scientific man perceived the earth's creatures.” –
Amazon. Right up my alley. Found this copy at Yesterday’s Warehouse; it had a
rather frail dustjacket that I removed and preserve in the files.
Ranking:
Essential.
File Code:
Bestiary. Medieval. Hardback.
The Age of
Scandal: An Excursion Through a Minor Period, by T. H. White.
“This
amusing foray into eighteenth century literature is an entertaining tabloid
biography of an age not unlike our own; men and women of fashion led their
lives under the avid scrutiny of a public with a sharp appetite for scandal and
sensation. In the period between the so-called Age of Reason and the Romantic
Revival - that which the author calls the Age of Scandal - aristocratic and
privileged eccentrics flourished. Here we meet notorious persons such as the
libertine Marquis de Sade, and the Countess of Kingston who journeyed to Rome
in the hope of seducing the Pope.” - Amazon. Has a companion piece I would like
to get, “The Scandalmonger”. [Lacks this jacket.]
Ranking:
Keeper.
File Code:
History. Gossip. Hardback.
One of his
early potboiler novels, and a look at life during the Victorian era as seen
through the eyes of one man. Can’t say as I’ve read it. Pictures from “The
Illustrated London News” and “Punch”.
Ranking:
Keeper?
File Code:
Novel. Historical. Softcover.
The Master,
by T. H. White.
A second-hand ex-library book. “It
involves two children, Judy and Nicky, and their dog Jokey, who are stranded
on Rockall, an extremely small, uninhabited,
remote rocky islet in the North Atlantic Ocean.
They find that it is hollow and inhabited by a mysterious person who aims to
take over the world … The Master: 157 years old, he communicates by telepathy,
which he can also use to control people's minds. He has invented a kind of
vibrator-ray to take over the world … In trying to impress upon the children
the meaning of the Master's great age, Mr. Frinton says: "Dr. Moreau was experimenting on his island and
the Iron
Pirate was
at sea and She was living her immortal life in
Africa when the Master was about ninety. Stevenson wrote Treasure Island when he was eighty-four. Captain Nemo was sailing in the Nautilus when he was seventy. Henry
Russell Wallace [sic]
thought of the origin of species when he was around sixty. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when he was coming of age, and
at the battle
of Waterloo he
was four years older than you are.” The children of course manage to stymie the
Master’s plans almost by sheer luck. The book is … rather uneven but has its
good parts.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Science Fiction. Novel. Hardback.
The Godstone and the Blackymor, by T. H. White. Illustrations
by Edward Ardizzone.
“God
knows what this book is about. I suppose it’s a bit of autobiography
really. But it’s about living on the West Coast of Ireland, in ‘the parish
nearest to America’ – they all are, I mean the parishes – and it is about
the people and things there, more than about me. I stumbled across what
Protestants had said was an idol still being worshipped by the Catholics, and a
coal-black Negro selling patent medicines, and a real Fairy Fire which lit our
footsteps over the infinite bog – no whimsy. I did a lot of goose-shooting
and falconry and salmon fishing. I went on pilgrimages and drank a lot and
made friends and found out what I could and thought about it. I got
ashamed of killing things. It seems to me a complicated sort of book about
a complicated place, which I loved, and anyway it has pictures
by Ardizzone, who loved it too.” – T. H. White. [Lacks this jacket.]
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Biography. Travel. Hardback.
T. H. White: A Biography, by Sylvia Townsend Warner.
I first read this book in high school and was rather shocked
with what I found out about White, which did not jibe with the image his books
gave of him at all. It went far to stretching the boundaries of my
understanding and my sympathies. A man tormented and struggling with his
sadomasochism and his homosexuality, always seeking out relationships where he
would be the dominant partner (an uneducated barmaid when he was determined to
try to be straight; in his imagination with the schoolboy ‘Zed’ whom he
befriended; with a poor Italian gigolo when he passed through Europe). All the
same he has his own personal sense of honor and a tenderness that is frequently
winning; it is no wonder he had so many good friends. A life of writing pursued
by hook or by crook, through financial ups and downs and always just a few
steps from a depression fought with heroic persistence, this insightful
biography by Warner still stands as THE life of White. Photos and drawings by
White.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Biography. Literature. Hardback.
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