Arthurian romances book series in reading order

by Stephen R. Lawhead

Stephen R. Lawhead, born 1950, is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction and historical fiction, with Celtic historical fiction the strand the name is most attached to. In the Hall of the Dragon King (1982) opens the Dragon King books and a catalogue of 44 titles that reaches Aurelia (2025). The Pendragon Cycle and King Raven take up Arthurian material and knighthood; the Song of Albion, Celtic Crusades, Eirlandia, Empyrion and Bright Empires follow. Children's books, among them the Howard and Riverbank Stories, sit alongside the novels.

Jack Whyte

17 books• 4 series

Jack Whyte (15 March 1940 - 22 February 2021) was a Scottish-Canadian novelist of historical fiction who left Scotland for Canada in 1967 and settled in Kelowna, British Columbia. The catalogue holds 17 books published between 1992 and 2018, opening with The Skystone (1992) and closing with The Burning Stone (2018). Subject tags cover Arthurian romances, Britons, Romans, Scotland, kings and rulers, and the Crusades, with fantasy and adventure alongside the historical filing. The headings are the Camulod Chronicles, the Templar Trilogy and a non-fiction list; Forty Years in Canada: A Memoir dates from 2006. The Jack Whyte run is listed as likely complete.

Mary Stewart wrote romantic suspense and, later, Arthurian historical fiction. The suspense novels begin in 1954 and continue through Wildfire at Midnight (1956), Thunder on the Right (1957), Nine Coaches Waiting (1958), My Brother Michael (1959) and The Ivy Tree (1961). The Arthurian Saga retells the legend of Merlin and the kings around him. 25 titles are catalogued in all, including children's books, short stories and poetry, the last being The Wind Off the Small Isles and The Lost One.

Bernard Cornwell

67 books• 10 series

Bernard Cornwell is an English historical novelist, born on 23 February 1944, who has also written a history of the Waterloo campaign. The Richard Sharpe novels, about a rifleman in the Napoleonic Wars, are Cornwell's best-known work. The Saxon Stories run to thirteen novels about how England was unified. Cornwell's historical fiction draws mainly on English history across five series, alongside one series of contemporary thrillers, and the historical novels carry an end note comparing the story to the historical record. The catalogue lists 67 books from 1981, when Sharpe's Gold appeared, to Sharpe's Storm (2025).

T.H. White

26 books• 1 series

T.H. White, Terence Hanbury White, 1906–1964, was an English writer best known for Arthurian fiction. The Sword in the Stone appeared on its own in 1938 and later joined the sequence collected in 1958 as The Once and Future King, with The Witch in the Wood (1939), The Ill-Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind (both 1940) beside it. Twenty-six books are catalogued from Darkness at Pemberley (1932) to Letters to a Friend (1982), taking in Farewell Victoria (1933) and England Have My Bones (1936).

J.R.R. Tolkien

61 books• 13 series

J.R.R. Tolkien (John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, 3 January 1892 to 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist, author of The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954 to 1955). At the University of Oxford, Tolkien held the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon and a Pembroke College fellowship from 1925 to 1945, then the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature until retiring in 1959. Tolkien belonged to the Inklings and was a close friend of C. S. Lewis. The catalogue lists 61 books from A Middle English Reader and Vocabulary (1921) to The Battle of Maldon (2023), including the History of Middle-Earth, poetry and children's titles.

Fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction and science fantasy were the fields of Marion Zimmer Bradley, an American author who lived from June 3, 1930 to September 25, 1999. Bradley is best known for the Darkover series and The Mists of Avalon, a novel of Arthurian fiction, and the writing stood out for a female perspective rarely seen before in sword and sorcery. Bradley started writing at 17, earned a Bachelor of Arts from Hardin-Simmons University, co-founded the Society for Creative Anachronism in 1966 and edited the Sword and Sorceress anthologies. The catalogue reaches back to Centaurus Changeling (1954), Falcons of Narabedla (1957) and The Door Through Space (1961), and Arilinn (2024) is the newest title in the listing.

Carla Simpson writes historical romance and mystery. The catalogue holds 38 books published between 1985 and 2026, opening with Desire's Flame (1985) and reaching Deadly Sacrifice (2026); A Whisper of Crows is scheduled for 2027. Angus Brodie and Mikaela Forsythe head an investigating sequence, and other series include Clan Fraser, Outlaws, Scoundrels & Lawmen, Angels, Devils, Rebels & Rogues, and the Lily Montgomery Murder Mysteries. Arthurian romance, Merlin and Camelot appear among the subject headings.

Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-1992) was an English novelist known above all for children's books, and within them for historical fiction and retellings of myth and legend. Some of the novels were written for adults; in a 1986 interview Sutcliff said the books were for children of all ages, from nine to ninety. The catalogue holds 56 titles between 1950 and 1997, opening with The Chronicles of Robin Hood (1950) and taking in The Eagle of the Ninth (1954), Outcast (1955), Beowulf: Dragonslayer (1956) and The Shield Ring (1956) before Sword Song (1997). Three series are catalogued: Marcus / Eagle of the Ninth, the Roman Britain Trilogy and the Arthurian books. Sutcliff was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1974.