Category: Novels, Stories & Books

Rosemary Sutcliff was an internationally renowned writer of historical novels, for children, young adults and adults. She also wrote stories for children. This category compiles the posts on this blog by title.

Carnegie Medal 2014 shortlist announced | Rosemary Sutcliff won in 1959 with The Lantern Bearers and runner-up for Tristan and Iseult

Anthony LawtonLeave a comment

The Carnegie Medal—judged by librarians in the United Kingdom is 77 years-old, this year! Past winners have included Rosemary Sutcliff as well such classic authors of children’s literature as Arthur Ransome and  C.S. Lewis. The shortlist of eight books for 2014 has just been announced:

  1. All the Truth That’s in Me by Julie Berry (Published by Templar)
  2. The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks (Puffin)
  3. The Child’s Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston (David Fickling Books)
  4. Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper (Bodley Head)
  5. Blood Family by Anne Fine (Doubleday)
  6. Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell (Faber & Faber)
  7. Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead (Andersen Press)
  8. The Wall by William Sutcliffe (sic) (Bloomsbury)

Rosemary Sutcliff  (1920-92) won the Library Association Carnegie Medal in 1959 for her historical novel for children The Lantern Bearers (she wrote for children ‘aged 8 to 88’, she said).  She was runner-up with Tristan and Iseult in 1972.

First awarded to Arthur Ransome for Pigeon Post, the medal is now awarded by The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. The winner  receives a golden medal and  £500 worth of books to donate to a library. Both the Carnegie Medal and its sister award, the Kate Greenaway Medal for illustrated books, are awarded every year.

Originally the Library Association started the prize in 1936 in memory of the Scottish-born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). He was a self-made industrialist who made his fortune in the steel industry in the USA and who was a great supporter of libraries. He once said ”if ever wealth came to me that it should be used to establish free libraries”.

Rosemary Sutcliff also won or was nominated for many other awards in the UK and USA. (She won other awards in translation).

62 main characters in Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels, retellings of legend, and children’s books

Anthony Lawton1 Comment
  1. Adam is Perdita’s friend in The Queen Elizabeth Story (1950).
  2. Alcibiades, is a warrior in the Peloponnesian War, including in the dreadful battle of Syracuse, who has a complicated relationship with Athens  in The Flowers of Adonis (1969).
  3. Alexios is a Roman army officer who becomes commander of the motley, savage group known as the Frontier Wolves in Frontier Wolf (1980).
  4. Amias Hannaford is the boyhood friend of Simon who fights for the Royalists (the Cavaliers) in Simon (1953).
  5. Anne is the wife of Sir Thomas Fairfax and  mother of Moll who has to trail her husband as he leads his army around the country in The Rider of the White Horse (1959)
  6. Aquila is the young commander of a troop of cavalry who realises that his strongest loyalty is to his native Britain rather than to the legions and a distant empire he has never seen, in The Eagle of the Ninth (1954).
  7. Aracos is a horse-breeder in A Circlet of Oak Leaves (1968).
  8. Artos is the bastard son of Uther, who is raised by his uncle as a cavalryman to lead the Roman-British fight against the invading Saxons, in Sword at Sunset (1963).
  9. Beowulf is the eponymous hero of Beowulf (1961).
  10. Beric is the infant son of a Roman soldier  is shipwrecked; then grows up with a Briton tribe, but is rejected both by them and Rome in Outcast (1955)
  11. Bess Throckmorton is the lady waiting’—Sir Walter Raleigh’s wife— who had to stay home as he travelled the world’s oceans, in Lady in Waiting (1957).
  12. Bevis is the young boy who becomes the knight in Knight’s Fee (1960).
  13. Bjarni Sigurdson is a young sixteen year-old Viking swordsman who is banished from the settlement for five years and  becomes a successful mercenary in Sword Song (1997).
  14. Bjorn, the Bear-Cub, is the foster-son of the old harper, and becomes a harper himself in The Shield Ring (1956).
  15. Blue Feather is a twelve year old girl who is promised to the cruel chief of her people, Long Axe, in Shifting Sands (1977).
  16. Boudicca is the defiant queen of the Iceni who leads her small British tribe in rebellion against the Roman invaders in Song for a Dark Queen (1978).
  17. Carausius is the Emperor served by Justin and Flavius in The Silver Branch (1957).
  18. Cordella is the girl Quintus wishes to marry in Eagle’s Egg (1981) .
  19. Cuchulain is the boy in Ireland who claims the weapons of his manhood and becomes the great warrior and hero, The Hound of Ulster (1963).
  20. Damaris Crocker is  a twelve-year-old girl involved with smugglers in Flame-Coloured Taffeta (1986).
  21. Drem is a boy born with a withered right arm who grows up in a bronze-age settlement on the South Downs in Britain, eventually to become one of the hunters of his tribe, in Warrior Scarlet (1957).
  22. Felix is a legionary in A Circlet of Oak Leaves (1968).
  23. Finn is the hero of The High Deeds of Finn MacCool (1967).
  24. Flavia is Aquila’s sister, kidnapped by Saxon raiders, who marries a Saxon and has a Saxon-child  in The Lantern Bearers (1959).
  25. Flavius is a centurion, friend and colleague of Justin in The Silver Branch (1957).
  26. Frytha is a young orphaned Saxon girl who seeks refuge in the Secret Valley in the Lake District after her home is burnt by the Normans, and joins Jarl Buthar’s Viking band in The Shield Ring (1956).
  27. Godmund is the White King in Chess Dream in a Garden (1993).
  28. Guenhemara is the woman Artos loves in Sword at Sunset (1963).
  29. Hrosmunda is the White Queen in Chess Dream in a Garden (1993).
  30. Hugh Copplestone joins a group of strolling players before going on to university, in Brother Dusty-Feet (1952).
  31. Hugh Herriot is stable-lad then galloper to Claverhouse in 17th Century Scotland, in Bonnie Dundee (1983).
  32. Iseult is the wife of King Marc of Cornwall in Tristan and Iseult (1971).
  33. Jestyn is a young 10th-century English man who is sold into slavery to the Northmen in Blood Feud (1976).
  34. Justin is a young army surgeon who is loyal to the Emperor Carausius in The Silver Branch (1957).
  35. King Odysseus of Ithaca is a traveller who visits the Cyclops, the Island of the Dead and Circe in The Wanderings of Odysseus (1995).
  36. Liadhan is the half-sister of Levin who uses Red Phaedrus to bring back goddess-worship and set herself on the throne in The Mark of the Horse Lord (1965).
  37. Lovel is a boy with physical disabilities, but a deep knowledge of herbs and also a gift for healing, who eventually helps build St Bartholomew’s hospital and priory in The Witch’s Brat (1970).
  38. Lubrhin Dhu is the young man with an unusual talent for drawing in Sun Horse, Moon Horse (1977).
  39. Lucky is the dragon-pup in The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup (1993).
  40. Marcus Flavius Aquila follows in the steps of his disgraced father to join the Roman army, but in his first battle in England he is seriously injured and forced to leave—he sets out to the North to recover the lost Eagle of the Ninth legion (his father’s legion) in The Eagle of the Ninth (1954).
  41. Mordred is a knight who plots against his father, King Arthur, to bring down Arthur’s court and The Round Table in The Road to Camlann (1981).
  42. Nessan is the daughter of a clan chief, who has to deal with her fear of being offered as a sacrifice to the Black Mother in The Chief’s Daughter (1967)
  43. Oisin is Finn’s son in The High Deeds of Finn MacCool (1967).
  44. Owain, the last Roman-British wearer of the dolphin ring, is the only survivor of a Viking raid and the great battle of Aquae Sulis in Dawn Wind.(1961).
  45. Paris in Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad (1993).
  46. Perdita from the English county of Devonshire, lives with her  her father the rector in the quiet Broomhill village where she nearly always finds fairies or Pharisees and sees Queen Elizabeth, in The Queen Elizabeth Story (1950).
  47. Piers is a cousin of Tamsyn who shares her feeling for the sea and becomes a close friend in The Armourer’s House (1951).
  48. Prosper becomes second shield-bearer to Prince Gorthyn in the Companions, a 300 strong anti-Saxon-invasion fighting 7th Century brotherhood in The Shining Company (1990).
  49. Randall is a young, ill-treated dog-boy who is wagered and won in a game of chess between a lord and a minstrel in Knight’s Fee (1960).
  50. Red Phaedrus is an enslaved gladiator in northern Britain in the first century; he earns his freedom, and accepts an offer to impersonate the missing Midir, son of a king of a Gaelic Kingdom, which gets him more than he bargained for in The Mark of the Horse Lord (1965).
  51. Robin Hood is the legendary outlaw in Sherwood Forest, fighting tyranny with a small band of followers, in The Chronicles of Robin Hood (1950).
  52. Simon Carey is a farmer’s son who enlists with the Parliamentary forces (the Roundheads) in Simon (1953).
  53. Sir Bors, Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot, and Sir Percival are four knights who search for the Holy Grail in The Light Beyond the Forest (1979).
  54. Sir Thomas Fairfax is husband of Anne and father of Moll, the impressive soldier in the English Civil War novel, The Rider of the White Horse (1959).
  55. Tamsyn is a girl from Devon who has to grow up with her uncle—a famous armourer—and his family in London, dashing her hopes of setting sail with her seafaring uncle, in The Armourer’s House (1951).
  56. Tethra is the seventh-born child of the Chieftain of the Epidii in The Changeling (1974).
  57. The Minstrel is a down-at-heel minstrel who finds a beautiful egg on the seashore, uses his harp-music to help the dragon-pup hatch—a pup which he then loses to a thief but retrieves, and together they cure the king’s son, in The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup (1993).
  58. Thomas Keith is an apprentice gunsmith from Edinburgh who becomes a young soldier in the Napoleonic wars in Blood and Sand (1987).
  59. Tristan is the warrior lover of Iseult in Tristan and Iseult (1971).

12 orphan-heroes and heroines in Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels

Anthony Lawton3 Comments

Many of historical novelist and children’s writer Rosemary Sutcliff’s books (of children’s literature) feature orphans—a thought prompted by Katherine Rundell’s choice of ’10 of the best orphans’ in children’s books, which did not include any of Rosemary Sutcliff’s characters. Indeed Anne, a regular reader and commenter here, wonders if the issue might not be which of Sutcliff’s heroes are not orphans; she recalls that the hero as orphan who makes their way in the world is  both a traditional fairy tale and a mythic trope. Thirteen orphans in Rosemary Sutcliff’s writing are:

Artos in Sword at Sunset (first published in 1963)
Beric in Outcast (1955)
Frytha and Bjorn in The Shield Ring (1956)
Hugh Herriot in Bonnie Dundee (1983)
Hugh Copplestone in Brother Dusty-Feet (1952)
Jestyn in Blood Feud (1976)
Lovell in The Witch’s Brat (1970)
Owain in Dawn Wind (1961)
Randall, the dog-boy, in Knight’s Fee (1960)
Red Phaedrus in The Mark of the Horse Lord (1965)
Tamsyn in The Armourer’s House (1951)

Artos (King  Arthur) is  the bastard son of a long-dead Uther, raised by his uncle. Read More »

Rosemary Sutcliff’s orphans Beric, Jestyn, Randall, Hugh not for Katherine Rundell’s top 10 orphans in children’s books

Anthony Lawton2 Comments

  Rosemary Sutcliff historical and children’s book and novel Blood Feud coverOutcast by Rosemary Sutcliff hardback coverKnight's Fee IllustrationBrother Dusty Feet historical fiction by Rosemary Sutcliff original UK cover

Sadly (and perhaps remissly) Katherine Rundell – winner of the Blue Peter book award 2014 for best story – did not include any of Rosemary Sutcliff’s characters in her recent ’10 of the best orphans’ at The Guardian’s children’s books site. She might have chosen Beric in Outcast, Jestyn in Blood Feud, Randall the dog-boy in Knight’s Fee, Hugh Copplestone in Brother Dusty-Feet. (And what are the  others I have forgotten?).

She chose:

  1. Mowgli, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
  2. Cinderella
  3. Cat Chant, Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones
  4. Anne, Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery
  5.  Alex Rider, Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
  6. Harry, Harry Potter by JK Rowling
  7.  Lyra, His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
  8. Sophie, The BFG by Roald Dahl
  9. Peter, Peter Pan by J M Barrie
  10. The Fossil Sisters, Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield

Source: Katherine Rundell’s Top 10 Orphans

The Witch’s Brat by Rosemary Sutcliff | One of 10 must-read children’s books | Telegraph

Anthony Lawton4 Comments

To mark World Book Day 2014 yesterday, Richard Davies of AbeBooks.co.uk chose ten ‘must-read’ children’s classics that can be bought secondhand for less than £1 each. One was The Witch’s Brat by Rosemary Sutcliff.

Famous for her historical fiction and retelling or myths and legends, Sutcliff transports readers to 12th century England in The Witch’s Brat, the tale of Lovel the outcast.

Lovel, the crippled hero of Rosemary Sutcliff‘s The Witch’s Brat, is driven from his village in a shower of stones after his grandmother’s death. (The) novel (is) … crammed with careful period detail and research, the painstaking catalogues of herb-lore brought grippingly to life by the characters to whom they bring such danger.

Writing for The Guardian in 2011 Imogen Russell Williams explored the enchantments of witch fiction. Of The Witch’s Brat  she wrote:

 … Lovel, the crippled hero of Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Witch’s Brat, is driven from his village in a shower of stones after his grandmother’s death.  Both novels are crammed with careful period detail and research, the painstaking catalogues of herb-lore brought grippingly to life by the characters to whom they bring such danger.

The other titles in the top ten were: Read More »