The Last Enchantment was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1979, completing the Merlin trilogy (a fourth book, The Wicked Day, would follow from Mordred’s perspective). The novel covers the years of Arthur’s reign — his military consolidation of Britain, the establishment of the Round Table, his marriage to Guinevere — and simultaneously Merlin’s decline: his powers fading, his role in Arthur’s life diminishing, his awareness that the king he created no longer needs him.
The “last enchantment” is both the final exercise of Merlin’s fading Sight and the enchantment of age itself — the spell that withdraws you from active life, that makes you an observer rather than an actor, that transforms you from essential to peripheral. Stewart writes Merlin’s aging with compassion and honesty: he resists irrelevance, he fears the loss of his powers, and he must learn the most difficult lesson any parent or mentor faces — how to let go of the life you shaped.
The novel covers the Nimue/Vivien episode (traditionally told as Merlin’s imprisonment by an enchantress) but reimagines it: Niniane is not a seductress who traps him but a talented student to whom he willingly transfers his knowledge, and his “entombment” is not magical imprisonment but the metaphorical death of retirement, of choosing to step aside.
Arthur’s reign is shown primarily through its effect on Merlin rather than through its political or military events — Stewart trusts that readers know the Round Table stories and focuses instead on what those stories look like from the perspective of the aging architect watching his creation operate without him.
Collecting The Last Enchantment
First edition (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1979): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First UK edition in dust jacket: $25–$60
- Signed first edition: $50–$120
- US first (Morrow, 1979): $15–$35
- Complete Merlin trilogy set (UK firsts): $80–$250