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In 1928 T.H. White graduated from Cambridge with a first in English and a thesis on Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. Ten years later, two years after leaving his teaching job at Stowe School, he turned Malory into The Sword in the Stone, the story of a boy called the Wart who is tutored by a wizard who lives backwards in time. Three more Arthurian books followed, all rewritten into The Once and Future King in 1958; a fifth, written in 1941, was found among his papers in Texas in 1975. Between them he trained a goshawk the old way and wrote about it, and put Gulliver’s Lilliputians on an island in an English lake. This guide covers his nine key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 9 key books · 1938–1977 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
T.H. White’s best-known book is The Once and Future King (1958), which gathers his Arthurian novels The Sword in the Stone (1938), The Witch in the Wood (1939) and The Ill-Made Knight (1940), heavily revised, with a new final part. Start with The Once and Future King; then try The Goshawk (1951) or Mistress Masham’s Repose (1946) to see the rest of what he could do.
Where to Start with T.H. White
If you want his defining book
→ The Once and Future King (1958) — the whole Arthurian cycle in its final form.
If you want the original, lighter Wart story
→ The Sword in the Stone (1938) — the 1938 version, before the war changed it.
If you want his nonfiction
→ The Goshawk (1951) — a man, a hawk and very little sleep.
If you want a book for younger readers
→ Mistress Masham’s Repose (1946).
9 T.H. White Books, in Order
The Sword in the Stone
Published by Collins in London as the first of his Arthurian books. The Wart, an orphan brought up by Sir Ector alongside his son Kay, is taught by the wizard Merlyn, who turns him into animals to show him how the world works; at the end he pulls a sword from an anvil in a London churchyard and turns out to be Uther’s son, Arthur. Putnam’s American edition of 1939 was partly rewritten, and in 2014 the original won a retrospective Hugo Award for Best Novel.
The Witch in the Wood
The second Arthurian book, published by Putnam in New York. It moves between the young King Arthur’s early reign and the Orkney court of Queen Morgause and her sons. For The Once and Future King White cut it heavily and renamed it The Queen of Air and Darkness.
The Ill-Made Knight
The third Arthurian book, published by Putnam in 1940, centred on Lancelot: the ugly, self-doubting knight who becomes the best in the world and spends his life divided between his loyalty to Arthur and his love for Guenever. It became the third part of The Once and Future King.
Mistress Masham’s Repose
Maria, a ten-year-old orphan living on Malplaquet, a decaying estate in Northamptonshire, finds a colony of Lilliputians on an island in the lake, descendants of people brought to England after Gulliver’s voyage. Her guardians, the vicar Mr Hater and the governess Miss Brown, are scheming to steal her inheritance, and Maria nearly harms the Lilliputians herself by treating them as pets. Putnam published it in the US in 1946; the British edition followed in 1947.
The Elephant and the Kangaroo
A comic novel written out of his years in Ireland, about an English writer living in County Kildare who ends up leaving the country on a Dutch barn in a flood. Many Irish and Irish-American readers took it as an insult, and the Irish couple White had lodged with, who recognised themselves in it, broke off their friendship with him.
The Goshawk
His account of training a young goshawk, Gos, ordered from Germany, using the old methods in the falconry manuals he had been reading: keeping the bird awake for days to tame it, and going without sleep himself. He wrote it in the 1930s from his daybook and put it away; it was published only after his friend David Garnett read it and insisted. Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk (2014) returns to it.
The Master
A scientific romance for younger readers: two children and their dog are stranded on Rockall, the rock in the North Atlantic, where a 157-year-old Master plans to take over the world. It was adapted as a six-part British television serial in 1966.
The Once and Future King
Published by Collins in 1958 as one book in four parts: The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind, the last never published on its own. White substantially recast the earlier books, adding the ant and goose episodes to the first part. It runs from the Wart’s boyhood to the night before Arthur’s last battle, and is about power, war and whether force can be made to serve right. The musical Camelot (1960) draws on it.
The Book of Merlyn
Written as the fifth and final part and sent to his publisher in 1941, who declined it, citing the wartime paper shortage and its anti-war argument. On the eve of the battle with Mordred, Merlyn returns to take the old king through one more round of animal lessons about why people go to war. The manuscript was found in 1975 among White’s papers at the University of Texas, whose press published it in 1977 with a prologue by Sylvia Townsend Warner.
In What Order to Read T.H. White
The Arthurian books are a series, and the order matters: the Wart’s childhood, Arthur’s early reign, Lancelot, the fall of the Round Table, then Merlyn’s last lessons. The simplest way to read them is The Once and Future King (1958), White’s own final version, followed by The Book of Merlyn (1977). The separate 1938–1940 volumes are earlier, different texts; read them afterwards if you want to see what he changed.
Note that some episodes appear twice: White moved the ant and goose transformations from The Book of Merlyn into the 1958 Sword in the Stone, so they turn up again if you read the two back to back. His other books stand alone and can be read in any order.
A reading path
1. The Once and Future King (1958)
2. The Book of Merlyn (1977)
3. The Goshawk (1951)
4. Mistress Masham’s Repose (1946)
5. The Sword in the Stone (1938)
Everything Else T.H. White Published
Beyond the 9 key books: 19 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early poems and novels
10
10 books · 1929–1938
- 1929Loved Helenan early book
- 1929The Green Bay Treean early work
- 1931Dead Mr Nixonwritten with R. McNair Scott
- 1932Darkness at Pemberleyan early novel
- 1932First Lessonpublished as James Aston
- 1932They Winter Abroadpublished as James Aston
- 1933Farewell Victoriaan early novel
- 1934Earth Stoppedscience fiction: a revolution and a holocaust
- 1935Gone to Groundlinked stories told by survivors in a shelter
- 1938Burke’s Steeragepublished the same year as The Sword in the Stone
Nonfiction, translation and essays
5
5 books · 1936–1959
- 1936England Have My Bonesmemoir
- 1950The Age of Scandalessays on eighteenth-century England
- 1952The Scandalmongermore eighteenth-century scandal
- 1954The Book of Beastshis translation of a medieval bestiary
- 1959The Godstone and the Blackymornonfiction
Published after his death
4
4 books · 1965–1984
- 1965America at Lastnonfiction
- 1980A Joy Proposeda posthumous collection
- 1981The Maharajah and Other Storiesselections from Earth Stopped and Gone to Ground, edited by Kurth Sprague
- 1984Letters to a Friendhis correspondence with his Cambridge tutor L. J. Potts
The years · 1906–1964
Quick facts about T.H. White
- Known for
- T.H. White is known for retelling the King Arthur legend as a story about education, power and war, beginning with the boy Wart and his tutor Merlyn.
- 1906
- Born in Bombay, British India
- 1928
- First in English at Cambridge, with a thesis on Malory
- 1946
- Settles on Alderney, in the Channel Islands
- 1964
- Dies aboard ship at Piraeus, Athens
- Born
- 29 May 1906, Bombay, British India, as Terence Hanbury White; known as Tim
- Died
- 17 January 1964, of heart failure aboard ship at Piraeus, Athens; buried in the First Cemetery of Athens
- Education
- Cheltenham College; Queens’ College, Cambridge (first in English, 1928)
- Worked
- Taught English at Stowe School, leaving in 1936 to write full time
- Lived
- Ireland from 1939 through the war; Alderney from 1946
- Archive
- Most of his papers are at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin
The red mark is 1958: The Once and Future King, his four Arthurian books in their final form.
How T.H. White Writes: Malory with Footnotes from the Present
White’s source is Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1485), which he had studied at Cambridge, but he tells it with deliberate anachronism. Merlyn lives backwards in time and remembers the future, so he can talk about things that have not happened yet; and at the end of The Once and Future King Arthur gives his story to a page called Tom of Warwick, who is Malory himself.
The books change tone as they go. The Sword in the Stone is comic, full of animals, archery and hawking, the things White did himself. The later parts, revised while the Second World War was being fought, turn to the question that drives the whole cycle: Arthur’s attempt to make might serve right, and why it fails. The ant and goose episodes, added in 1958, put that question to the Wart through animals.
His nonfiction shows where the precision comes from. The Goshawk is a day-by-day record of his own failures with a bird, written with the same attention to detail as the hawking scenes in the Arthurian books. For a writer who went back to that record, see the guide to Helen Macdonald below.
Frequently asked questions about T.H. White’s books
How many books has T.H. White written?
More than 25, several published after his death. Nine are the key books on this page, from The Sword in the Stone (1938) to The Book of Merlyn (1977); the rest, listed under “Everything Else”, are early poems and novels, essays, a translation of a medieval bestiary, and posthumous collections and letters.
What are T.H. White’s books in order?
The Sword in the Stone (1938), The Witch in the Wood (1939), The Ill-Made Knight (1940), Mistress Masham’s Repose (1946), The Elephant and the Kangaroo (1947), The Goshawk (1951), The Master (1957), The Once and Future King (1958) and The Book of Merlyn (1977).
Where should I start with T.H. White?
The Once and Future King (1958), his own final version of the Arthurian cycle. If you want something shorter first, The Sword in the Stone works on its own, and The Goshawk is the best way into his nonfiction.
What is T.H. White’s most famous book?
The Once and Future King (1958). Its first part, The Sword in the Stone, first published in 1938, is the best-known single story, partly through Disney’s animated The Sword in the Stone (1963).
What is the reading order of The Once and Future King?
The four parts are The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind. The Book of Merlyn (1977) was written as a fifth and final part and is read last.
Is The Once and Future King the same as the separate books?
No. White substantially rewrote The Sword in the Stone (1938), The Witch in the Wood (1939) and The Ill-Made Knight (1940) for the 1958 volume. The Witch in the Wood was heavily cut and renamed The Queen of Air and Darkness, and the first part lost some episodes and gained the ant and goose chapters from The Book of Merlyn.
Why was The Book of Merlyn published so late?
White sent it to his publisher in 1941 as the end of a single five-part book, but it was turned down, with the wartime paper shortage and its anti-war message given as reasons. The manuscript was found in 1975 among his papers at the University of Texas, and the University of Texas Press published it in 1977.
Which films and musicals are based on T.H. White?
Disney’s The Sword in the Stone (1963) and the musical Camelot (1960), filmed in 1967. The Goshawk and The Master were also adapted for television.
Did T.H. White influence Harry Potter?
J. K. Rowling has said White strongly influenced the Harry Potter books and has called the Wart “Harry’s spiritual ancestor”; critics often compare Dumbledore with White’s Merlyn.
What is controversial about T.H. White?
Two things. His Irish novel The Elephant and the Kangaroo (1947) offended many Irish readers, and the couple he had lodged with in Ireland ended their friendship over it. And Sylvia Townsend Warner’s 1967 biography described him as homosexual and sado-masochistic, drawing partly on his diaries about his unrequited love for a boy he called Zed; his agent and friend David Higham disputed her portrayal as selective.
Footnotes
- T. H. White — Wikipedia
- The Once and Future King — Wikipedia
- The Book of Merlyn — Wikipedia
- Mistress Masham’s Repose — Wikipedia
- White, T H — The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
- The Goshawk — New York Review Books
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The best thing for being sad … is to learn something.”
— Merlyn to the Wart, in T.H. White, The Once and Future King (1958)
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