You Write!

This page is to help me gather material about Rosemary Sutcliff, historical novelist, writer of children’s books and  fiction for young adults; and for you to take part, should you wish!

Posts made because of contact from this page or by email include:

You might use this page to send me copies of reviews, or links to your own or other people’s material that you think might interest me and the increasing number of visitors to this blog. What have you read of Rosemary’s or about her or her work? What did you enjoy? Why? Would you recommend it to others? Have you recommended it? Who to ? Was your career (if you have one) or life influenced by Rosemary Sutcliff or her books at all? Anything else you want to suggest I put here about her? Do you have advice on improving this site and especially on fostering a network of the many people interested in Rosemary or touched by her in her lifetime or since? Anybody in particular to connect with for some reason? I look forward to hearing from some of you

Thank you! Anthony Lawton
a(dot)g(dot)lawton(at)gmail(dot)com

160 thoughts on “You Write!”

  1. I have been addicitve to Sutcliff’s book for about 40 years now. I have read everything by her in German and a lot in English and she is one of the very few authors I came across who benefits from translations. Mostly, when I read a book in German and then in the English original I prefer the original in comparison. Even if the translation is good (not every one is, Harry Potter is a linguistic catastrophe) normally the power and motion of the English is hardly transferred into German. Not so with Rosemary Sutcliff. Even by different translators her books are every bit enjoyable in German, sometimes even more. Where the English language is strongly built upon verbs and verbal structures (the abundant “-ing-forms” are something every German pupils has to struggle to understand the concept of), German sets the focus much more on nouns and adjectives – and so does Rosemary Sutcliff. When she describes a scene – maybe due to being forced to just sit and watch for so many years of her early life – she concentrates on things that don’t move or change, on colours and textures. Like in later life as a miniature painter she draws her scenes in minute detail – much like a German sentence as Mark Twain depicted it ;-). I find this most unusual and remarkable and one the increasingly rare examples for an author whose style of writing (not so much the plots) is in direct correspondence with her very special biography.

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  2. Anthony’s earlier mention of the 1991 interview with John Withrington got me hunting out my copy for a re-read.

    We’ve also recently discussed the chronology of the novels linked by the Aquila family dolphin ring. Readers have often wondered if Rosemary Sutcliff had the whole Aquila family sequence already mapped out when she wrote “Eagle of the Ninth”, so I thought it might be of interest to note her emphatic reply when Withrington asked about this.

    JW: “Sword at Sunset” is one of a series in which you use a leitmoif, that of the flawed emerald signet ring, to trace the history of a family from Roman Britain right through to Norman times. The first novel in which you used this was “Eagle of the Ninth” in 1954, but it appears later in “Frontier of the Wolf” in 1980. Was it your intention to construct a magnus opus, an epic from start to finish, in which Arthur appeared in the middle?

    RS: No, it just happened. It did that of its own accord.

    Intriguingly, in this interview Sutcliff Indicates more than once that she feels her novels to a certain extent shape themselves or are shaped by their characters – for example a question about “The Shining Company” elicits the response; “That’s, as I say, because of them, not me.”

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    • Thank you for this!
      Yes , Rosemary often spoke with me about how the stories took on a life of their own. She was not always sure where events were going exactly nor how people would develop.

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    • The article, the report of an interview, struck me as intriguing: John Withrington’s questions are far longer than Rosemary Sutcliff’s answers! I sense that Rosemary was rather un-impressed by the questions!

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  3. Hi
    I have just picked up an uncorrected proof copy of “The rider of the white horse”
    The authors name is spelt Sutcliffe with an e on the endit is in very good condition binding wise, the pages are very browned from age though.
    Any idea if it has any value?

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  4. Hi
    Just come across this site. Saw the ‘Eagle’ movie today under duress as I felt sure it would be another movie massacre of a good book (and this being my second favourite one from my childhood, I read it when I was nine…). I was really taken aback. The plot change was clever and the way the characters were developed was really excellent. I liked both of them much more in the film than in the book and their developing friendship was more believable. I am just so surprised to to have a film version of something I preferred to the book. Incidentally, my favourite book was Rosemary Sutcliff’s ‘The Lantern Bearers’ – any chance of giving that epic-like one a go?

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  5. Dear Anthony,

    My wife and I visted Rosemary in the 80s and recorded a lengthy interview with her. Its got lost somewhere but if we ever find it we’ll make a copy for you. Her work was a huge inspiration to us as writers and we continued to correspond with her until her death. All the best. John

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  7. Have just returned to 21st century after a week in Romano – Saxon Britain, re-reading Dawn Wind and the Lantern Bearers. It’s hard to come back….but the internet means I’ve just found this site, which I’ll be visiting again.
    Best wishes

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  9. I have seen “The eagle” and was disappointed its plot divurged so much from “The eagle of the Ninth”, though I enjoyed it very much, as a film. Now, I would like to see the BBC’s dramatisation of the novel, made in 1977. I gather that a lot of people have contacted the BBC about this already.

    I was reading your Facebook site which is attached to this one; and saw that one person was having difficulty contacting the BBC. The address is:

    British Broadcasting Corporation, Wood Lane,
    London W12 7BX

    The corporation can also be contacted through its Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk

    Go to the bottom of the page, and you’ll find a button reading “Contact us” in the right-corner

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  10. One name you might like to add to the “Rosemary Sutcliff influenced and inspired” list is the English author Lynne Ellison, who wrote the novel The Green Bronze Mirror, about a teenage girl who goes back in time to ancient Rome, at the age of 14. Lynne is still alive and living in Sheffield, UK. Her account of how she came to write this book, as well as a free extract of it, are available at http://www.authonomy.com/writing-community/profile/22340dcd-fd3f-43a3-a774-404d67637a08/lynne-ellison/

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