I recall Rosemary, perched at her usual desk, reading out loud to my enraptured young son drafts of The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup, which was her first picture book. It was illustrated by Emma Chichester-Clark. In the UK , the eminent critic Naomi Lewis often reviewed Rosemary Sutcliff’s books. She praised The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup as ‘inspired’ and ‘distinguished’. An American critic thought it a ‘fast-paced fairy tale of loss and joyful reunion’ which was ‘beautifully illustrated’. Read More »
Joan gone this morning (Diary, 31/3/88)
Think Tiffy has got a job at an old people’s home in Bognor and so is going tomorrow. Joan gone this morning.
© Anthony Lawton 2012
Joan was RS’s much loved friend and companion who came to live with her for periods of weeks, then had a spell away.
Rosemary Sutcliff Diary | March 30th, 1988
“I am going to post Rosemary Sutcliff’s diary, daily, twenty years on from 1992, the year of her death”, I wrote here originally, but in fact it is from 1988! Much of it is prosaic, including a regular “Can’t remember what I did”! Every so often there are little gems about current writing or observations of her beloved garden. Local people come to visit. There are the comings and goings of her housekeeper-companions, and her driver: she was severely disabled and needed intensive support. (Happily and unusually she was a successful enough writer to finance these needs before ever any state benefits were available to her.)
Gave Tiffy notice – JW coming to provide moral support. He took it quite well. Admitted that he has a drink problem. He is going to be out of the cottage by Sunday.
© Anthony Lawton 2012
Quite a day for starting a new diary | Rosemary Sutcliff March 29th, 1989
Quite a day for starting a new diary. Mr Triggs and his merry men have got the new fence up, and it really looks very good, although a bit in need of some little trees down at the far end to soften it and make it more woodsy. Later, gathered from Mr T that the Tiffy has been much awash with whisky all day and he had told him he shouldn’t drive in that state, when he saw him setting of to Barnham. Rang Ruth and discussed the situation, and have to give him notice tomorrow.
© Anthony Lawton 2012
Rosemary Sutcliff’s Sword at Sunset is in first-person singular
When I started writing Sword at Sunset I made at least three false starts, but I couldn’t think what was the matter. I knew exactly what the story was that I wanted to tell, but it wouldn’t come. Then suddenly the penny dropped: it had to be first-person singular. I had never done first-person singular before, but the moment I started doing it that way it came, like a bird. But I had problems with it: first-person singular is very different from third-person writing, and I had no experience of it at all. But it was the only way it could be written.
Source: Raymond Thompson | Taliesin’s Successors: Interviews with Authors of Modern Arthurian Literature
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 