T. H. White

Terence Hanbury White (May 29, 1906 - January 17, 1964) was a writer. He was born in Bombay, India.

After graduating from Queens' College, University of Cambridge with a first-class degree in English, he spent some time teaching at Stowe, before becoming a full-time writer. He was interested in hunting, flying, hawking and fishing. He was an intensely-involved naturalist.

White is most famous for writing The Once and Future King, a collection of novels for children. It is a modern adaptation of Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, reinterpreting the legend of King Arthur. It includes:

• The Sword in the Stone (1938)
• The Queen of Air and Darkness, originally titled The Witch in the Wood (1939)
• The Ill-Made Knight (1940)
• The Candle in the Wind (1958)
• The Book of Merlyn (published posthumously, 1977)

He wrote many other books, some under a pseudonym. They include a children's book, Mistress Masham's Repose, in which a young girl discovers a group of Lilliputians (the tiny people in Swift's Gulliver's Travels) living near her house. Also for children was The Master, set on Rockall. Other works include The Goshawk and The Age of Scandal.

He died aboard ship in Piraeus (Athens, Greece) while returning home from his American lecture tour.

External links

• "England have my bones", the T.H. White website
• T.H. White's 1954 translation of a 12th century bestiary can be found on-line at http://libtext.library.wisc.edu/Bestiary/