[Those] of us who love "The Once and Future King" are intemperate in their adoration of the book. We read it again and again, amazed at its sweep, moved by the compassion that White brought to the human condition, marveling at the grace with which he carried his scholarship, humbled at the sheer poetry of the conception…. Thus "The Book of Merlyn" was eagerly awaited. But as one reads these pages it is easy to see why White dropped most of it and ended "The Once and...

A basic charm of The Once and Future King is the way the author threw himself into the story he borrowed from Malory. If you are looking for simple adventure, for knights and ladies in the slightly stiff poses of medieval tapestry or Gothic sculpture, you do not read White; you go to Le Morte d'Arthur, a more direct though still tertiary source. White's reworking is valuable for the myriad, living and deep reflections of the author's complex personality—in Merlyn the genial misan...