Here he is back in 1938, welcoming the publication of T.H. White's The Sword of the Stone in his review for The Bystander:
The Sword in the Stone, by T. H. White (Collins 8s. 6 d.), is mixed, but, on the whole successful, fantasy about anachronisms and it contains two chapters at least which are the funniest things I have read for a long time. Mr. White's game is to tell the adventures of a boy called the Wart, at his father's mediaeval castle, in terms which lie somewhere between the language of Grimm, Wodehouse, and the College of Heralds.
This kind of thing may produce the vulgar comedy of the schoolboy howler or passages of wicked genius Mr. White has both here is an example of the latter. A possible origin of fox-hunting is suggested—
Sir Ector said: "Had a good quest to-day?"
Sir Grummore said: "Oh, not so bad. Rattlin' good day in fact. Found a chap called Sir Bruce Saunce Pite choppin' off a maiden's head in Weedon Bushes, ran him to Mixbury Plantation in the Bicester and lost him in Wicken Wood. Must have been a good 25 miles as he ran."
The two high spots are the witches' duel—run strictly on what I take to be Camelot rules—with Merlyn; and a wonderful joust between two knights who lumber along towards each other at a mild drayhorse canter and meet with stupefaction in a dull crash of ironmongery. These are both Disney scenes.
Mr. White has a pleasant learning which gives the whole a comically critical and instructive air. I never recommend humour, because it makes enemies, and many awful people will read this book aloud; but I suggest a prolonged and surreptitious glance at it.
And Disney did buy the rights to the book in the following year, though his film of it did not appear until 1963.
Trivia fans will be interested to know that Pritchett is the grandfather of the cartoonist Matt, who is famous for nailing it.
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