Category: Autobiography & Biography

Posts on the rosemarysutcliff.com weblog about the life and thoughts of Rosemary Sutcliff, including what she wrote and said about writing and her own craft.

Beautiful edition of Rosemary Sutcliff’s Autobiography | Blue Remembered Hills

Anthony Lawton8 Comments

Issue 35, Autumn 2012Slightly Foxed is, in their own words, “a rather unusual quarterly book review”, as I posted last year. It professes to be “unaffected by the winds of fashion and the hype of the big publishers” as it introduces readers to “some of the thousands of good books that long ago disappeared from the review pages and often from bookshop shelve.”  “Companionable and unstuffy”, its contributors – some well-known, others not – all write “personally and entertainingly about the books they choose”. It appeals to me that it is “not so much a review magazine as a magazine of enthusiasms – some of them quite quirky”.

In the autumn of 2011 they launched a new paperback series, putting into paperback those Slightly Foxed Editions that have now sold out. I remain delighted that Rosemary Sutcliff’s autobiography Blue Remembered Hills was released. It is pocket-sized and very elegantly produced.

Blue Remebered Hills by Rosemary Sutcliff

The first day of spring but I don’t feel Spring-like in the least | Rosemary Sutcliff Diary | March 1st, 1991

Anthony LawtonLeave a comment

This year, I shall post occasionally random excerpts on random days from Rosemary Sutcliff’s diary (last year for a while I did daily reproductions). From March 1st 1991:

The day which, most years, means the start of spring to me. But it is such a grey, miserable day and my ears, which I thought recovered from my cold, so bad again, that I don’t feel Spring-like in the least.

Rosemary Sutcliff On Changing the Ending of Stories and Songs

Anthony Lawton12 Comments

A quotation from Rosemary Sutcliff at the goodreads site – unfortunately without a reference  (does anyone know it?) – gave me pause for thought as I reflected upon the changed ending to the story of The Eagle of the Ninth for the film The Eagle. Perhaps that is a reason after all to celebrate that the film was not (in English) called The Eagle of the Ninth. But perhaps also I should not have been so sanguine about the changed ending when asked to comment by the press when the film came out a couple of years ago now. In any event, this is a thought-provoking note on which to re-energise this blog, now that I am six months into my stint with a new day-job! To regulars….apologies for the silence….and to commenters….apologies for some long delays in approving so that comments are published.

“I do not think that you can be changing the end of a song or a story like that, as though it were quite separate from the rest. I think the end of a story is part of it from the beginning.”

Obituary published on her death in 1992 for historical novelist and children’s writer Rosemary Sutcliff

Anthony Lawton2 Comments

I missed out posting on the anniversary of historical novelist and children’s writer Rosemary Sutcliff’s death. One obituary was in The Independent newspaper.

Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels opened the eyes of a generation of children to the past. They also set a new standard for children’s historical fiction because of their insight, passion and commitment.

Sutcliff was a demanding writer who expected a lot from her readers which is why her books are also wholly satisfying for adults. She evokes time and place with an incredibly sure touch and – once she had found her true voice with The Eagle of the Ninth in 1954 – a sharp ear for the dialogue of the past.Read More »