Century City News’s reviewer in Los Angeles was not wild about The Eagle; but did list some world-wide release dates:
Canada – 11 February 2011
USA –11 February 2011
Greece – 17 February 2011
Finland – 18 February 2011
Malaysia – 25 February 2011
Germany – 3 March 2011
Netherlands – 3 March 2011
Sweden – 11 March 2011
Egypt – 23 March 2011
Hungary – 24 March 2011
Norway – 25 March 2011
UK – 25 March 2011
Portugal – 30 March 2011
Lithuania – 1 April 2011
Spain – 8 April 2011
Rosemary Sutcliff‘s re-telling of Beowulf is praised at Suz’s Place, an online supplier of used and secondhand books. ‘She’ wrote that her softcover volume was published by Penguin Books in 1961. “It has a little rubbing on all corners and edges but is looking incredibly good for it’s age. I wish I looked this good.”
Lionhearted Beowulf, the hero who had the strength of thirty men in his arms, sailed away over the whale road in his war-boat, his fast floater, to rid the Danes of their deadly scourge, the prowling monster who struck terror into the bravest warriors of Denmark as they waited night after night in King Hrothgar’s court. Great glory came to Beowulf before he died, the renown from his three great battles, with Grendel and his fearful mother, and with the dragon who guarded the brilliant treasure-hoard hidden away in the earth.
Rosemary Sutcliff’s retelling of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf grasps the splendour and mystery of the original poem. It is a story to feed the imagination powerfully, and fill the mind with a trembling awe.
… the vital spark of Rosemary Sutcliff‘s books, from The Eagle of the Ninth onwards, is the total imaginative penetration of the historical material. The books seem to be written from the inside, so that the reader’s identification with the chief character carries him further into the felt life of the time than many other books which are made up of the skilful but detached articulation of the fruits of research. One feels that Rosemary Sutcliff is less concerned to write historical narrative than to reconstruct, in the child’s response to her creative imagination, a strong feeling for and involvement with the people of this mist-bound, huddling, winter-dark island at the periods when the invaders came, Romans, Saxons, Norsemen.
This magic has certain recognizable elements; Read More »
Reviewing past posts, I am reminded that thirty years ago in 1981, British publishers announced their choices for the top 20 (then) living British writers. Rosemary Sutcliff was among them. At the time, the chairman of the selectors said:
In a storehouse so rich, there are far more than twenty good , even great, writers. What we have tried to do is select authors whose record of publication has provided them with critical acclaim and public recognition.
She ‘beat’ onto the list such distinguished people (who were not in the top 20) as Robert Graves (the poet and novelist), J.B. Priestley (who had a 60-year literary career), Alan Sillitoe, Kingsley Amis, Muriel Spark, Dick Francis and Daphne du Maurier. Lord Snowdon took a picture which for copyright reasons I cannot post. I must track down the original list (can anyone help?).
Rosemary Sutcliff, was provided by the time when the Roman Empire was crumbling at the edges with (says critic and children’s book expert Brian Alderson):
a complex of subjects of great dramatic potential: civilising discipline set against tribal barbarities, the servants of Empire with an allegiance also to a homeland within its borders, the selfless devotion, on either side of the equation, to causes and to overarching human relationships (and even those between man and beast) … Read More »
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 