Mary Stewart who began her career with a strong identification as an author of romance novels with a twist of suspense. Then she took a mid-career hard left turn into fantasy novels set in Arthurian universe and lifted herself into the stratosphere of fame and instant recognition. She is probably most well-known for three books which make up her “Merlin Trilogy.” Since The Prince and the Pilgrim is set in Arthurian England with the titular prince setting off for Camelot on a mission of vengeance from which he is distracted by Morgan Le Fay, how does this novel fit into Stewart’s Arthurian multiverse?
Kind of the way that Rogue One fits into the Star Wars multiverse. It takes place in the same galaxy, references or features characters from the trilogy and it overall part of the grander narrative scheme, but features a self-contained story, though not that is entirely original. In the Author’s Note at the back of the book Stewart indicates very cursory references in both Thomas Malory’s original tale of Arthur of Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks as inspirations for a story that can perhaps be said to gain an advantage over the books making up the Merlin trilogy in that she doesn’t have to align her story with the more familiar ones.
Of course, in books like these, originality is not the highest component ensuring customer appreciation. From a title which skirts very closely to edge of sounding like the novel is going to be a satire to the requisite utilization of a semantic approach that kinda-sorta sounds like formal English but really isn’t, The Prince and the Pilgrim is an example of delivering exactly the goods your customers expect. The opening image takes place on one of England’s many coastal cliffs and it is another case of making readers within to be in England in the summertime with their love. You’ve got your Saxons and names like Clotilda and your Young Celts and your Castle Rose at Glannaventa. What you’ve got in your hands when reading The Prince and the Pilgrim is everything that anyone could possibly expect from a novel with that title which opens on that image of a man standing on a cliff in “the sixth year of the Reign of Arthur the High King of all Britain” and with, well, some people living “in great joy.”
Those looking for the further adventures of lesser-known characters occupying a familiar place and time will not be disappointed. Those hoping that maybe by stepping outside the confines of that familiar place and time to indulge in something a little more experimental or edgy than her famous trilogy likely will be. And the rest will simply ignore it because a princess and a pilgrim are no match for a vampire high school love story or tattooed girls who play with fiery hornets nests or dystopian nightmares of America in the not-too-distant future.
