KV Johansen on Rosemary Sutcliff’s influence

KV Johansen commented on another version of this site earlier this year, and I have only just caught up (again) with it.

This is a wonderfully thorough site, Anthony. At a time when libraries are weeding all the twentieth century classics because children allegedly won’t (or can’t) read them, it’s important for someone to be pointing out why great books go on being great, the influence they’ve had on readers and writers, and the impact they are still having on young readers. (Mind you, all the weeding makes it easier to find used copies of favourites missing from the personal collection.)

You asked for mentions of other material on Sutcliff. I talked about her a bit in the chapter on retellings of the Arthurian and Robin Hood legends in my book on the history of children’s fantasy literature, Quests and Kingdoms (2005). Managed to sneak in some mention of her Romans, too, via Lantern Bearers and Sword at Sunset. I think Sutcliff is up there just below Tolkien in the “what shaped my deepest imagination and why I’m a writer writing the kinds of things I write” list.

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