The Goshawk

This modern classic of nature writing by the author of The Once and Future King was an inspiration for and featured in Helen Macdonald's prize-winning H IS FOR HAWK.

With a foreword by Helen Macdonald, author of the multi-award-winning H Is for Hawk.

'No hawk can be a pet. There is no sentimentality. In a way, it is the psychiatrist's art. One is matching one's mind against another mind with deadly reason and interest. One desires no transference of affection, demands no ignoble homage or gratitude. It is a tonic for the less forthright savagery of the human heart.'

First published in 1951, T.H. White's memoir describes with searing honesty his attempt to train a wild goshawk, a notoriously difficult bird to master. With no previous experience and only a few hopelessly out-of-date books on falconry as a guide, he set about trying to bend the will of his young bird Gos to his own. Suffering setback after setback, the solitary and troubled White nonetheless found himself obsessively attached to the animal he hoped would one day set him free.

About the Author

T. H. White (1906-1964) was born in Bombay, India, and educated at Queen's College, Cambridge. He was the author of twenty-six published books, but he is perhaps best known for his sequence of novels reimagining the Arthurian legend, referred to collectively as The Once and Future King, the fantasy Mistress Masham's Response and The Goshawk. He died at sea on his way home from a lecture tour and is buried in Piraeus, Greece.