People have been looking for the sites of the long-lost and mysterious battles of King Arthur for a thousand years. In this book, the result of extensive consultation with experts across academic disciplines, the author’s researches point to fascinating new conclusions about Arthur’s life.

Much of the history of the time was lost because of some kind of natural catastrophe around AD 540. But the warrior elite, of which Arthur was part, went on to rule what later became known as Wessex, the cradle of the English nation – for which King Arthur became a founding legend.

Don Carleton’s study – arguably the first attempt at an ‘authentic history’ of King Arthur for generations – offers a compelling case for a new location of the long-lost Battle of Badon, King Arthur’s greatest battle.

The king and warrior who emerges from this work will be, to some readers, uncongenial. In this portrait, Arthur appears to have been a wily but amoral, boastful blond Irish raider, unrestrained in his ravaging, who used his battles to carve out a kingdom among the Britons and ended his life as a shambling, incoherent shadow of a warrior, a danger to himself and to everyone around him.

• A striking new picture of King Arthur.
• Based on research into the Sixth Century supported by academic review.
• Arthur was from Ireland, Guinevere was his mistress not his queen, he died brain-damaged on the Isle of Skye.
• 34 million Americans of Irish descent will welcome the idea of an Irish Arthur.
• The author is ex-Bristol University and a former broadcaster and film-maker (BBC and elsewhere).
• Interest in Arthur continues to inspire film and TV, and Arthurian societies around the world.