The tragedy of Arthur, Merlyn, Lancelot, and Guenevere, has been told many times. The Once and Future King is T. H. White’s twentieth-century re-imagining of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, written during the tumultuous years of the Second World War.

This edition of The Once and Future King is an omnibus of five separately published books:

1. The Sword in the Stone
2. The Witch in the Wood
3. The Ill-Made Knight
4. The Candle in the Wind
5. The Book of Merlyn

The omnibus was first published in 1958 with only the first four books. In hindsight, that’s the best version to read. White had an epiphany that caused him to write the fifth book and rework passages of the earlier four: “I have suddenly discovered that . . . The central theme of Morte d’Arthur is to find an antidote to war” (857–8). While the lessons Wart gains from the ants and the geese are compelling, the theme feels shoehorned into an otherwise sublime story.

White’s prose takes its time. The pages, especially in the first book, are filled with paragraph-long lists of things like the detritus of Merlyn’s home. If you can slow down and imagine these lists, White’s writing comes alive. If you rush through, you’ll miss out. The Once and Future King is a book to read at a leisurely pace.

White, T. H. The Once and Future King. Harper Voyager, 2013.