- Born
- Died
- Birth nameTerence Hanbury White
- Nickname
- Tim
- T. H. White was born in India, where his father was a member of the Indian Civil Service, and was educated at Cheltenham and Queen's College, Cambridge. He was an English master at Stowe School from 1930 to 1936, and while there, completed his first real critical success, England Have My Bones, which was an autobiographical account of his country life. He afterward devoted himself exclusively to writing and to studying such obscure subjects as the Arthurian legends, which were to provide the material for his books. White was reclusive by nature, often isolating himself for long periods from human society, and spending his time hunting, fishing, and looking after his often strange collection of pets. He was a novelist, a satirist, and a social historian who probably was best known for his brilliant adaptation of Sir Thomas Malory's 15th-century romance, Morte d'Arthur into the quartet of novels called The Once and Future King. He wrote books about hunting and other sports, a detective novel, books of adventure and fantasy, and many short stories and poems. He published a book of poems while still at Cambridge (Loved Helen and Other Poems), and continued to write poetry throughout his life. He died aboard ship in Greece while returning home from his American lecture tour. His last book, America At Last, which was published after his death, records the tour.- IMDb Mini Biography By: J.M. <curator@hauntedlibrary.com>
- In his later years, he lived alone in a cottage in a remote fastness on the island of Alderney. He was a tall man, with flowing white hair, a deep voice and a big white beard. He answered a knock on his cottage door one afternoon to discover two young Americans, complete strangers to him, who announced that they represented the Jehovah's Witnesses. White immediately responded, "I am Jehovah - how are we doing?" In telling this story, as he often did, White liked to conclude by saying that their response had been to "run like hell".
- His father was a district superintendent with the colonial police, and an alcoholic given to outbursts of aggression. His mother was said to be cold and distant. White was packed off to school in England at an early age. His parents' marriage broke up soon after the end of the First World War. All this may have led to his becoming emotionally isolated from other people; he lived alone and spent most of his life in remote rural areas.
- In his famous novel for children, "The Sword In The Stone", the boy who will grow up to be King Arthur is told that the best cure for being lonely is to learn something. His biographer, Sylvia Townsend Warner, noted that White, who never married and lived mostly in remote areas far way from people, had an enormous fund of detailed knowledge on all kinds of esoteric subjects; all his (few) friends regarded him as a true polymath. From this, she concluded that he must have been an intensely lonely man throughout his life.
- As soon as the Second World War started in 1939, White began professing Irish ancestry (hitherto unmentioned) and immediately took himself to the Republic of Eire, a neutral country where he remained throughout the conflict.
- To divest oneself of unnecessary possessions, and mainly of other people: that was the business of life.
- The way to every creature's heart was through the belly. This was why women had insisted on the prerogative of being allowed to cook.
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