That was the first and last time I went on a camping holiday of my own free will, and The Crystal Cave did a lot to make the experience bearable, by taking me away from it completely. My favourite is The Crystal Cave, which I first read lying fully dressed in a sleeping-bag, in a tent in mid-Wales, in the March snow, desperately trying to finish the book before the light went, or my torch battery went. I’ll have to go and buy it now, * but I do know that it’s about the finding of the Holy Grail. I think this must be because I bought the other four novels in one go, and this last one was published after that, and I simply didn’t notice. The fifth novel, The Prince and the Pilgrim, I haven’t actually read, and I didn’t even know it existed until I started researching this pod. The following four are The Hollow Hills (in which Arthur grows up and comes to his kingdom), The Last Enchantment (the early years of Arthur’s reign, still struggling against the Saxons), and The Wicked Day (the story of Mordred, given a rather sympathetic twist). Mary Stewart wrote a magical series of five Arthur novels, starting with The Crystal Cave, and the life of Merlin. She died in 2014, which came as a shock to me. I had been living in the same time as one of my favourite authors, and never had the gumption to write her a letter? Fool. We’ve reached the point in this recap of Really Like This Book podcast scripts about King Arthur when we really have to talk about Mary Stewart.
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