Ninety-Nine Novels: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

<p>In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.</p><br><p>This is the final episode of Series Two, and our guest Elizabeth Elliott is helping us explore Camelot in&nbsp;The Once and Future King&nbsp;by T.H. White.&nbsp;Published in 1958, The Once and Future King adapts the famous stories of King Arthur and his Round Table. Beginning with the childhood of Arthur in the first book, The Sword in the Stone, White’s version of the familiar stories are complex examinations of leadership, nobility, romance and war. Of White’s novel, Burgess writes, ‘This is not remote and fabulous history: the lesson of the breaking of the Round Table is for our time.’</p><br><p>T.H. White was born in Bombay, India in 1906. Although&nbsp;The Once and Future King&nbsp;is his most famous novel, he was a prolific writer, with 20 other books to his name. In 1951, he published&nbsp;The Goshawk, which details his attempts to train his hawk using the falconry methods of the Middle Ages. He died in 1964 in Greece, during the return journey from a lecture tour of the United States.</p><br><p>Elizabeth Elliott is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Aberdeen. She specialises in medieval and early modern literature and the afterlives of medieval texts in later literature. Her latest article ‘Restorying Arthurian Legend<strong>:&nbsp;</strong>Space, Place and Time in&nbsp;Once &amp; Future&nbsp;and&nbsp;Legendborn<em>’&nbsp;</em>was published in the Journal of the International Arthurian Society in 2022. Her book Remembering Boethius: Writing Aristocratic Identity in Later Medieval French and English Literatures is published by Routledge.</p><br><p>--------</p><br><p>BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE</p><br><p>T