For award-winning, internationally-acclaimed author Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-92). By Anthony Lawton: godson, cousin & literary executor. Rosemary Sutcliff wrote historical fiction, children's literature and books, films, TV & radio, including The Eagle of the Ninth, Sword at Sunset, Song for a Dark Queen, The Mark of the Horse Lord, The Silver Branch, The Lantern Bearers, Dawn Wind, Blue Remembered Hills.
Another interesting cover of Rosemary Sutcliff’s novel, The Eagle of the Ninth caught my eye. It is a russian version, printed in 1990. This means that the book was printed one year before the fall of the Soviet Union. I wonder what this will have meant for young Russian readers, discovering Rosemary for the first time. The political undertones in the book might have been especially resonant. The book is full of beautiful illustrations. I can’t seem to find who they are drawn by. One image shows The body slave Esca, trapped in the fisher’s net at the Colosseum in Calleva.
Anthony Lane wrote of the film Centurion in September, and looking forward to Kevin Macdonald‘s film The Eagle from The Eagle of the Ninth that
… a number of debts are being discharged (in Centurion). The mysterious vanishing of the Ninth (now disputed by some scholars) has fed many fancies, notably Rosemary Sutcliff’s in The Eagle of the Ninth—one of the most stirring historical novels ever written for children …
Rosemary Sutcliff was my dad’s Godmother. In my family home in Leicester, many of Rosemary’s books line the shelves. They are printed in dozens of different languages, from first editions to last.
Rosemary’s most celebrated book is The Eagle of the Ninth. It is now in it’s fiftieth edition. I asked my wife to take some photographs of all the different covers of the book we could find with her new camera. I will be posting these photographs over the next few weeks, in a completely random order.
The first post is the 1959 Canadian edition, printed by The T. H. Best Printing Company Limited. The back drop to the book is our garden, covered in snow. It’s freezing here!
Rosemary Sutcliff’s books The Wanderings of Odysseus and Black Ships before Troy were both illustrated by the incredibly talented artist Alan Lee.
Alan is possibly most famous for his illustrations of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Alan was also the joint lead artist on Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings.
I was hoping to post an illustration but the image are under copyright, so I’m posting a link to the google books preview page of The Wanderings of Odysseus, with full colour illustrations.
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 