Peter Callela recalls Rosemary Sutcliff’s “wonderful, classic The Eagle of the Ninth” and notes that now the new film The Eagle will be released in the USA on February 11, 2011. (It will be mid-March in the UK: please let me know anyone who knows timing in other countries). He writes that “ever since word got out that this adaption was being produced, I’ve been excited about seeing how Sutcliff’s literary material gets translated to the screen, and now that the official trailer has been released, it looks like there is reason to be optimistic.Read More »
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. Sometimes a consultant.
From Combat International for the film The Eagle (of the Ninth)
These people did some of the fight scenes
Rosemary Sutcliff’s Knight’s Fee always made Mel Saxby cry!
Ah the joys of Google and Amazon, and random discoveries of past writings! In 2000 one Mel Saxby reviewed Rosemary Sutcliff’s Knight’s Fee, urging people to read an “underrated” novel:
Knight’s Fee is one of the four or five books I’ve read in my life which alway make me cry. Though written for children, it’s completely unpatronising, always crediting the reader with intelligence and imagination, and is beautifully written. It tells the story of Randal, a half-Saxon half-Breton lad in Norman England, an orphan left to fend for himself as a dog-boy in Arundel castle, and details his gradual rise to knighthood and freedom, at a terrible price. I have only ever seen this book in hardback, in an Oxford Childrens Library edition, never in paperback, which is a great pity, as it is a vastly underrated book by this author, far better I think than her more well-known stories of Roman Britain, and deserves to be much more widely read.
Choices of Rosemary Sutcliff on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio in 1983
As posted here in the last couple of weeks, Rosemary Sutcliff talked about her life and work and chose eight records to take to the mythical BBC Radio desert island on October 1st, 1983. Interviewed by Roy Plomley, she said she chose her music just because she loved it. The full list of her choices is:
Record 1: Dvorak’s New World Symphony, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, by Istvan Kertesz.
Record 2: “Eternal father strong to save” – Hymn.
Record 3: L’Apres-midi d’une Faune by Debussy. Royal Philharmonic conducted by Thomas Beecham.
Record 4: “We’ll Gather Lilacs” sung by Anne Ziegler & Webster Booth.
Record 5: “The Flowers of the Forest” played by the pipes & drums of the 1st Battalion of the Scots Guards.
Record 6: Excerpt from “Under Milk Wood”. Polly Garter’s song.
Record 7: “The Lark Ascending” by Vaughan Williams. The Boyd Kneale Orchestra. With Frederick Grinker.
Record 8: “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” by Bach. Choir of King’s college, Cambridge, conducted by David Willcocks.
One record: The Lark ascending
One Luxury: Roy Plomley refuses her her request to take her beloved dogs. She chooses flowers, delivered daily by bottle.
One book: “Kim” by Rudyard Kipling.
Kevin Macdonald Director of film The Eagle at the UK Cheltenham Festival on October 9th 2010
At the coming Cheltenham Literature Festival Kevin Macdonald, director of the forthcoming The Eagle will explore with others “the historical reality and the modern invention behind this (swords and sandals) cinematic genre.
Source: Swords, Sandals and Celluloid: Mary Beard, Kevin Macdonald and Maria Wyke
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 