“Historical fiction breathes life into the bare bones of history” | Rosemary Sutcliff

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Rosemary Sutcliff spoke to a ‘Children’s Literature New England’ conference in 1989, in Cambridge (UK). Her contribution was entitled ‘History and Time’. At one point she told an anecdote to indicate that she saw her task as a historical novelist to be to breathe life into the bare bones of the accounts of academic historians and teachers.

Many years ago, when I was sure of myself as only someone scarcely out of their apprenticeship can be, I was talking to an audience of school teachers in the Midlands that are sodden and unkind, when a County Inspector of Education stood up and asked what was my justification for writing historical novels, which he clearly considered a bastard form, instead of leaving the job to legitimate historians who knew what they were talking about. I looked him straight in the eye and said: “Historians and teachers, you and your kind, can produce the bare bones, all in their right order, but still bare bones. I and my kind can breathe life into them. And history is not bare bones alone, but a living process.” Looking back I’m rather shaken at my hardihood, but I still think I was right.

  • Source: Historical Fiction for Children: Capturing the Past by Fiona M. Collins, Judith Graham. Routledge (2013). p 112

Rosemary Sutcliff’s original publisher OUP throw out nature words she uses from their children’s dictionary

Anthony Lawton5 Comments

The Oxford University Press are the original publishers of Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels for children. So it worries me greatly me to learn that in their most recent Junior English Dictionary they have removed a wealth of words about nature, many of which appear in those self-same books—and probably in other more recent children’s books which OUP are happy to profit from. They have removed:

adder, ass, beaver, boar, budgerigar, bullock, cheetah, colt, corgi, cygnet, doe, drake, ferret, gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher, lark, leopard, lobster, magpie, minnow, mussel, newt, otter, ox, oyster, panther, pelican, piglet, plaice, poodle, porcupine, porpoise, raven, spaniel, starling, stoat, stork, terrapin, thrush, weasel, wren.

acorn, allotment, almond, apricot, ash, bacon, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bloom, bluebell, bramble, bran, bray, bridle, brook, buttercup, canary, canter, carnation, catkin, cauliflower, chestnut, clover, conker, county, cowslip, crocus, dandelion, diesel, fern, fungus, gooseberry, gorse, hazel, hazelnut, heather, holly, horse chestnut, ivy, lavender, leek, liquorice, manger, marzipan, melon, minnow, mint, nectar, nectarine, oats, pansy, parsnip, pasture, poppy,porridge, poultry, primrose, prune, radish, rhubarb, sheaf, spinach, sycamore, tulip, turnip, vine, violet, walnut, willow

It is also astonishing that they have thrown out such words as:

carol, cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe

dwarf, elf, goblin

abbey, aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, christen, disciple, minister, monastery, monk, nun, nunnery, parish, pew, psalm, pulpit, saint, sin, devil, vicar

Apparently they have made room for such words as these instead:

blog, broadband, MP3 player, voicemail, attachment, database, export, chatroom, bullet point, cut and paste, analogue

celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, citizenship, childhood, conflict, common sense, debate,

EU, drought, brainy, boisterous, cautionary tale, bilingual, bungee jumping, committee, compulsory, cope, democratic,

allergic, biodegradable, emotion, dyslexic, donate, endangered, Euro

apparatus, food chain, incisor, square number, trapezium, alliteration, colloquial, idiom, curriculum, classify,

chronological, block graph

Source: http://www.naturemusicpoetry.com/news-and-blog/literary-stars-support-naturewords-campaign

Rosemary Sutcliff proud of not writing down to readers to entice them into compelling and demanding tales.

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Some paragraphs from the entry about Rosemary Sutcliff in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature:

Screenshot 2015-01-12 14.44.12Critical comments about Rosemary Sutcliff from The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature

Oxford version of Fowler’s Modern English Usage uses Rosemary Sutcliff quote to show use of ‘practically’

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Use of Rosemary Sutcliff quote in Oxford Fowler’s English Usage

One of first display advertisements in a British newspaper for children’s novel by Rosemary Sutcliff | 1951 in The Guardian

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Advertisement for Rosemary Sutclif’s The Armourer’s House

Source: The Manchester Guardian (1901-1959); Oct 4, 1951