Rosemary Sutcliff  “followed ” in Geoffrey Trease’s footsteps – was the correct claim of a Morning Star article but they were wrong about when. And the newspaper spelled her name wrong (with an ‘E’). But the article The man who told the people’s stories was intriguing about  children’s writer Geoffrey Trease. I wrote to the editor:

You carry a fascinating article yesterday (February 25, 2010) by Farah Mendlesohn about Geoffrey Trease. But may I correct a couple of errors of fact. If Rosemary Sutcliff (sic) did indeed  “follow” in “Trease’s footsteps”, she started following in the 1950s not the 1960s as stated, with her award-winning ‘Lantern Bearers’ and ‘The Eagle of the Ninth’ both in that earlier decade. And in all decades her name was spelled without the ‘E’ which your writer gave her.

As to the detail about Trease, whilst not a matter of fact, I think it interesting that in one respect Rosemary Sutcliff did not follow in his footsteps. I grew up listening directly to her as a close relative. I heard  how much she treasured Trease’s work, but I do not think that she shared the political leanings that the article explores.

If you Google (sic) wrongly with an ‘E’ you will find that the Morning Star is not alone. If you look elsewhere in this blog you will find that even her publishers, the OUP, have done it  on occasion …. That is why I have a Google Alert set for the wrong spelling as well as the right one. Interestingly today it through up a blogpost from 2005 about wrong spelling of her name.