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.
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.
Fugitive Ink blog by Barendina Smedley tackles issues of politics, art and literature “from an unapologetically idiosyncratic, vaguely High Tory perspective.”
Amongst the lesser pleasures of parenthood should be numbered the opportunity, not only to re-visit the favourite books of one’s own early childhood … but also … the opportunity to encounter as an adult the children’s books one missed in childhood. Rosemary Sutcliff’sThe Eagle of the Ninth very much a case in point.
She goes on to write a long, fascinating piece about her reading of the novel – but I would have called this one of the greater pleasures of parenthood!
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
Rosemary Sutcliff wrote five historical novels specifically for adult readers. They were published by Hodder and Stoughton, as she noted in her blue reference notebook.
Before my mother stopped her (to keep all her papers in one place), Rosemary Sutcliff happily responded ad hoc to speculative letters asking for research notes and other papers connected with her historical novels and children’s books. So this collection at the University of Southern Mississippi includes notes in her trademark red notebooks. Interestingly the reference refers not only to The Lantern Bearers, but to notes for books called The Red Dragon and The Amber Dolphin, as well as notes on several other topics. There never were published books with those titles. The collection also contains a manuscript and two typescripts for the radio play The New Laird. The programme was taped on April 4, 1966, and broadcast from Edinburgh on May 17, 1966 as part of the Stories from Scottish History series. (I note that the library has not bothered with making accurate and up-to-date their brief paragraphs on her life … )
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 