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.
A spinal carriage… was rather like a wicker coffin. It was very uncomfortable and you lay flat out in this thing and of course all you could see were the branches of the trees or the roofs of the houses going by overhead and it was extremely boring. With any luck you were allowed perhaps to sit up on the way home from a walk.
Rosemary Sutcliif wrote several re-tellings of Celtic and British legends, and other books, including her autobiography Blue Remembered Hills which were published originally by Bodley Head. Here, she records them in her blue notebook.
Rosemary Sutcliff's handwritten list of her Bodley Head books
Do you want to hear what Rosemary Sutcliff sounded like, as well as some of her observations about her life and writing?The BBC has now made available the original recording of Rosemary Sutcliff on Desert Island Discs with Roy Plumley from October 1st, 1983. She talks about her career, about the difficulties caused by arthritis since she was a child and she chooses the eight records that she would take to the mythical island. They were:
Antonin Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 in E minor ‘From the New World’
Dykes/Whiting: Eternal Father Strong To Save
Claude Debussy: Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune
Richard Tauber: We’ll Gather Lilacs
John D. Burgess: The Flowers Of The Forest
Dylan Thomas: Under Milk Wood
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata No. 147: Herz und mund und Tat und Leben
Mind you, Charlotte Higgins, Chief Arts Writer of The Guardian, commented in a tweet:
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 