Now all ready for off to Oxford in the morning … (Diary, 19/4/88)

April 19th Tuesday. Sheila went off this morning and Joan arrived this afternoon. Now all ready for off to Oxford in the morning.

© Anthony Lawton 2012

Author: Anthony Lawton

Chair, Sussex Dolphin, family company which looks after the work of eminent children’s & historical fiction author Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-92). Formerly CEO, chair & trustee of various charity, cultural & educational enterprises in UK. View all posts by Anthony Lawton

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twitter @rsutcliff

@RyanKrolAuthor All those people who enjoy #ReadingRosemarySutcliff for a start ….! https://t.co/RyU9w517Au | 1 day ago

Plus they have a “beautifully presented enthusiasm” for the “irresistible” RosemarySutcliff …… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… | 1 day ago

If you are minded to enthuse young pupils (but also adult learners) about poetry, this thread has some great ideas… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… | 1 day ago

Ewan MacColl in 1945 with Joan Littlewood (to whom he was married at that time) founded Theatre Workshop; he was th… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… | 1 day ago

Ewan MacColl died #OTD Oct. 22, 1989, in London; singer, songwriter, and playwright. He co-created (with Charles Pa… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… | 1 day ago

This today @guardian about when Vikings were first on North American soil would’ve interested Rosemary Sutcliff; ju… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… | 1 day ago

@MichaelRosenYes Cries and Wispas #SweetTitles | 2 days ago

@MichaelRosenYes The Malteser Falcon #SweetTitles | 2 days ago

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the guardian newspaper in praise of rosemary sutcliff

Rosemary Sutcliff‘s 1954 children’s classic The Eagle of the Ninth (still in print more than 50 years on) is the first of a series of novels in which Sutcliff, who died in 1992, explored the cultural borderlands between the Roman and the British worlds – “a place where two worlds met without mingling” as she describes the British town to which Marcus, the novel’s central character, is posted.

Marcus is a typical Sutcliff hero, a dutiful Roman who is increasingly drawn to the British world of “other scents and sights and sounds; pale and changeful northern skies and the green plover calling”. This existential cultural conflict gets even stronger in later books like The Lantern Bearers and Dawn Wind, set after the fall of Rome, and has modern resonance. But Sutcliff was not just a one-trick writer.

The range of her novels spans from the Bronze Age and Norman England to the Napoleonic wars. Two of her best, The Rider of the White Horse and Simon, are set in the 17th century and are marked by Sutcliff’s unusually sympathetic (for English historical novelists of her era) treatment of Cromwell and the parliamentary cause. Sutcliff’s finest books find liberal-minded members of elites wrestling with uncomfortable epochal changes. From Marcus Aquila to Simon Carey, one senses, they might even have been Guardian readers.

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