History and Mystery Reads

Rating: 8/10

• Accuracy: Plausible post-Roman Britain, built from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s legends and what little archaeology existed; the magic is ambiguous rather than overt.
• Readability: Clear, graceful first-person narration.
• Plot: Merlin’s childhood and youth, from an illegitimate boy in Wales to the man who arranges the conception of Arthur.
• Science bonus: Stewart’s Merlin is a scholar-engineer rather than a wizard; his reputation for magic rests on medicine, observation and engineering, including raising the great stones.

Merlin, called Myrddin Emrys, is born the bastard son of a Welsh princess who refuses to name his father. Small, clever and ignored, he discovers a cave where an old hermit teaches him learning and the gift of vision. He is swept up in the wars of the fifth century, meets the exiled prince Ambrosius, and becomes a prophet, engineer and adviser, eventually helping Uther Pendragon reach Ygraine at Tintagel.

Mary Stewart, previously known for romantic suspense, took a bold approach. Her Merlin narrates his own life as a historical memoir. The world is rough and realistic, and the supernatural elements, his visions, are never fully explained.

The novel’s pleasure is in the details: the Roman ruins, the roads, the wooden halls, the politics of warring kings. Stewart uses Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth-century story, including the building of Stonehenge, but makes it credible.

Merlin is an appealing narrator: lonely, observant, unsentimental and ironic about his own reputation. The relationships with his mother and with Ambrosius are moving.

The weakness is that the pace slows in places, and the romance of the Arthurian material can become idealised. Some readers want more magic; others want less.

The 8 reflects a fine, influential historical fantasy that launched a quartet and a wider revival of Arthurian fiction. It remains one of the best treatments of Merlin.