‘If you admire Mary Stewart’s handling of the chase and the escape, you’ll find them to the full here’

Glasgow Evening Times

‘A deft colourful and clean-limbed re-creation of Merlin’s early life’

The Sunday Times

‘A fascinating story which lays a firm hold on the imagination’

Scotsman

‘If you like escapist, enjoyable stuff, and read only one book a year, this is it . . . absorbing. Mrs Stewart has the gift of being able to tell a story’

Daily Mirror

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Edwin Muir’s poem ‘Merlin’ is reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. from the Collected Poems, 1921–58. The poem on page 222 is a free translation of verses appearing in Barzaz Breiz; Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, by the Vicomte de la Villemarqué (Paris, 1867). The Legend of Merlin is based on the translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain which was first published in the Everyman’s Library, Vol 577, by J. & M. Dent in 1912.

About the Author

Mary Stewart, one of the most popular novelists, was born in Sunderland, County Durham and lives in the West Highlands. Her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk? was published in 1955 and marked the beginning of a long and acclaimed writing career. All her novels have been bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. She was made a Doctor of Literature by Durham University in 2009.

Also by Mary Stewart

Also by Mary Stewart

Madam, Will You Talk?

Wildfire at Midnight

Thunder on the Right

Nine Coaches Waiting

My Brother Michael

The Ivy Tree

The Moonspinners

This Rough Magic

Airs Above the Ground

The Gabriel Hounds

Touch Not the Cat

Thornyhold

Stormy Petrel

Rose Cottage

The Arthurian Novels

The Crystal Cave

The Hollow Hills

The Last Enchantment

The Wicked Day

The Prince and the Pilgrim

Poems

Frost on the Window

For Children

The Little Broomstick

Ludo and the Star Horse

A Walk in Wolf Wood