… Think I see my way out of the immediate Catraeth problem, though there are still plenty ahead …(Diary, 30/5/88)

May 30th Monday. Another Bank Holiday! Yesterday’s wind got up again. The pups have spent the whole day yelling to be let out & chasing squirrels. Betty S came in for a while, chiefly to catch Sheila for a chat this morning. Think I see my way out of the immediate Catraeth problem, though there are still plenty ahead.

The “Catraeth problem”, which is a rare diary comment about her work-in-progress, first surfaced in Rosemary Sutcliff’s diary on 28/8/88. It relates to a battle which features in her novel The Shining Company.

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

Do Leave a Response

topics and books

twitter @rsutcliff

Follow @rsutcliff

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.

Do Leave a Response Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

	Valerie Heard on The Eagle of the Ninth BBC Rad…
	26soldiersoftin on The Books of Rosemary Sut…
	Cathy Gillespie on The Books of Rosemary Sut…
	John Simmons on The Books of Rosemary Sut…
	Roz on The Books of Rosemary Sut…
	Calmgrove on The Books of Rosemary Sut…
	Pat Carson on The Books of Rosemary Sut…

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Author: Anthony Lawton

Do Leave a Response Cancel reply