The Ill-made Knight

"The Ill-Made Knight" is the third book in the epic novel The Once and Future King, by T. H. White. It was first published in 1940, but is usually found today only in collected editions of all four books of the novel. Much of The Ill-Made Knight takes place in the fabled Camelot, full of blue castle tops, red banners and white castle bricks. Against this happy backdrop, White constructs a tragedy. The Ill-Made Knight is based around the adventures, perils and mistakes of Sir Lancelot. Lancelot, despite being the bravest of the knights, is ugly, and ape-like, so that he calls himself the Chevalier mal fet - "The Ill-Made Knight". As a child, Lancelot adored King Arthur and spent his entire childhood training to be a knight of the round table. When he arrives and becomes one of Arthur's knights, he also becomes the king's close friend. This causes some tension, as he dislikes Arthur's new wife Guinevere. In order to please her husband, Guinevere tries to befriend Lancelot and the two eventually fall in love. T.H. White's version of the tale elaborates greatly on the passionate love of Lancelot and Guinevere. Suspense is provided by the tension between Lancelot's friendship for King Arthur and his love for and affair with the queen. This affair leads inevitably to the breaking of the Round Table and sets up the tragedy that is to follow in the concluding book of the tetralogy - The Candle in the Wind.


Genre: Fantasy