Rosemary Sutcliff on researching and writing her historical novels

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Rosemary Sutcliff told one interviewer in the early 1960s:

‘I get down to what I enjoy much more, recreating the daily life of the people: the sort of houses they lived in, how they were furnished, what food they ate and how it was cooked, what they grew in their gardens, how they travelled, their clothes and weapons, and, very important from my point of view, what songs they sang and what stories they told round the fire at night.’

Margaret Meek's monograph on Rosemary Sutcliff

Source: Meek, M., 1962. Rosemary Sutcliff (Bodley Head, London). p 13.

Two Rosemary Sutciff titles in the top ten historical fiction and fantasy books to make Amanda McCrina cry

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Extract from a blog post by Amanda McCrina:
UK Hardback Cover Rosemary Sutcliff The Lantern Bearers in 1959

I feel like I should rename this as ‘Books that will make you cry if you, in fact, cry for books.’ I don’t, typically. The following books particularly moved me—if I did cry for books these would be the ones that did it—but I think I only truly cried at the first. (Some spoilers follow, naturally.)

1) The Lantern Bearers, Rosemary Sutcliff.
Unsurprising to most of you who know me and my reading preferences. This is my favorite of her books, it’s very nearly my all-time-favourite book, and yes I have cried while reading it. Through most of the ending chapters, but especially at this part:

Aquila was staring into the fire, his arm across his knees. What was there to say to Flavia, after their last meeting, and the years between? And then he knew. He put up his hand and freed the shoulder-buckle of his leather tunic, and pulled it back; he dragged up the loose woollen sleeve beneath, to bare his shoulder, and leaned toward Mull in the firelight. ‘Look.’

Mull strained up higher on his sound arm, and looked. ‘It is a dolphin,’ he said.

‘A friend did it for me when I was a boy.’ He let his sleeve fall and began to refasten the buckle. ‘Ask her if she remembers the terrace steps under the damson tree at home. Ask her if she remember the talk that we had there once, about Odysseus coming home. Say to her–as though it were I who spoke through you, “Look. I’ve a dolphin on my shoulder. I’m your long-lost brother.”’

2) The Shining Company, Rosemary Sutcliff.
Not even among my top five of her books, probably, but undeniably a tear-jerker.

Source:  Top 10 Tuesday: Books to make you cry » Amanda McCrina — Historical fiction and fantasy; incl. The Lantern Bearers, Oxford University Press, pg. 292

65 editions of Rosemary Sutcliff books since her death in 1992 (incl DVD of The Eagle!)

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2014 The Mark of the Horse Lord. London: Red Fox Classics, 2014. ISBN 9781782950868 (pbk).
2013 Dawn Wind. Illustrated by Charles Keeping. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 1906562369 (pbk), 9780192793591 (pbk).
2013 The King Arthur Trilogy. London: Vintage Children’s Classics, 2013. ISBN 9780099582571 (pbk), 9781448161485 (ebook).
2012 Blue Remembered hills : A Recollection. London: Slightly Foxed, 2012. ISBN  1906562369 (pbk.), 9781906562366.
2012 Sword at Sunset. London  Atlantic, 2012. ISBN 9780857892430 (hbk); 9780857892447 (e-book).
2012 The Eagle of the Ninth Collection. Illustrated by Cyril Walter Hodges, Charles Keeping. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. ISBN 0192794728 (set), 9780192794727 (set). Read More »