Zbigniew Tycienski grew up in south-east Poland but after time in Greece and Italy he migrated to the United Kingdom and settled in Edinburgh. Along the way, he read The Eagle of the Ninth and posted this intriguing article about one of Rosemary Sutcliff’s best historical novels.
One may at first conclude that Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth (1954) is a book for boys about men and masculinity. Read More »
The world-famous Rosemary Sutcliff historical novel The Eagle of the Ninth (being made into a film with Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell by director Kevin Macdonald and producer Duncan Kenworthy) in Japan is 第九軍団のワシ by ローズマリ サトクリフ (著), C.ウォルター ホッジス (イラスト), Rosemary Sutcliff (原著), 猪熊 葉子 (翻訳). Curiously today today the front of the Amazon website in Japan shows two US editions … and not the Japanese one. Read More »
Reading Sutcliff’s famous historical novel The Eagle of the Ninth helped enthuse University of Reading lecturer Matthew Nicholls as a child about Roman history. His article in The Guardian Notes and Queries led me to ask what it was about the famous novel which he found so ‘wonderful’
… I can remember reading The Eagle of the Ninth when I was about 7 or 8; at that age I was starting Latin at School and showing an interest in Romans, so my parents took me off to Wall near Lichfield where we lived and must have bought me the book too. It made a great impression, Read More »
Matthew Nicholls, lecturer in classics and senior tutor at the University of Reading said today in the Guardian that Rosemary Sutcliff’s “wonderful” book The Eagle of the Ninth helped turn him on to Roman history. Read More »
Philip Reeve fears that the ‘beautiful’ writing of historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff is in danger of being forgotten. Author of The Mortal Engines Quartet (someone once called it ‘alternative history’ not ‘science fiction’) and the Larklight in 2009, Reeve wrote in The Daily Telegraph of his fears.
With so many good new books for children being published all the time, I sometimes fear that the classics of my childhood are in danger of being forgotten. So I’d recommend Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels, particularly Warrior Scarlet and The Eagle of the Ninth – cracking adventures, beautifully written, filled with a profound sense of the British landscape and its past.
According to the curious and enchanting Larklight website,:
Mr Philip Reeve was born and raised in the bustling seaside slum of Brighton. Like all residents of that vile town he fled as soon as he was able, and now lives in a secluded cottage on Dartmoor, where frequent encounters with gigantic house spiders and fruitless efforts to preserve his tweed and serge against the voracious moth have given Mr Reeve a deep understanding of Art Mumby’s plight. He is the author of the bestselling Mortal Engines quartet.
Source: The Daily Telegraph , July 4, 2009 ; The Guardian, September 30, 2006 Saturday Review p20.
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 