T. H. White is best known for his transformations of stories of the past. His four-volume masterpiece, The Once and Future King (1958), gives new life to the works of Sir Thomas Malory, and White also retells, or provides sequels for, stories told by such writers as Jonathan Swift, William Shakespeare, and the anonymous author of the biblical story of the Flood. In addition, his diaries and journals, such as England Have My Bones (1936), which he wrote during the years when he first determined to earn his living as a writer, not only have considerable narrative interest in themselves but also can be read as sources for his contributions to English fiction.

Terence Hansbury White was born on 29 May 1906 in Bombay, India, to Garrick Hansbury White, a district superintendent of police, and Constance Edith Southcote Aston White, the daughter of a judge. In 1911, suffering from a stomach infection, he...