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 just added a link to the text of the introduction written by Elizabeth Goudge for Rosemary Sutcliff’s “Rider on a White Horse” to an earlier post about the connection between these two authors, who corresponded with each other and for a time shared the same publisher. I was idly browsing the internet to see if the text of EG’s introduction to Sutcliff’s “Sword at Sunset”was available online. I didn’t find it, but did come across this lovely little anectode from Deborah Gaudin, a fan and collector of Goudge’s work, which shows the warmth of their relationship:

    “…I found the guide she had written for the Chapel at Buckler’s Hard, and that she had written the jacket publicity for a number of books, ‘Rider on the White Horse’, and ‘Sword at Sunset’ among them, both written by another favourite author of mine Rosemary Sutcliff. This is when the wonderful, Goudgian event occurred. My husband mentioned that he had seen the first editions of ‘The Sword and the Circle’, ‘The Road to Camlann’ and ‘The Light Beyond the Forest’ by Rosemary Sutcliff for sale, and that they were signed by the author. Was I interested? Of course I was, how could I resist?

    When the books arrived, they were in perfect condition, obviously never been read, and indeed they were signed by the author, and dedicated to ‘Elizabeth with love.’ One of the books also contained a letter. It said; ‘Elizabeth, my poor Darling! Jessie told me about your poor pinned leg and I am so sorry! This is really just a Get Well Card, I’ll write properly when you feel more up to letters, and meanwhile I’ll phone Jessie for news. Much love Rosemary’. It was dated April 24th. For anyone familiar with Elizabeth’s biography, the connection of the two names Jessie and Elizabeth in the same missive had to be more than coincidence! In the ‘World of Elizabeth Goudge’ Sylvia Gower tells us how in the early spring of 1978, Elizabeth had a fall at home and injured her leg so badly she had to go to hospital. Seven months later she was still in pain enough to mention her ‘pinned leg’ in correspondence. Elizabeth told a reporter that Jessie was a great help to her with her files and papers, and indeed was told to burn all superfluous material after her death. I am sure that Elizabeth would have corresponded with a number of contemporary authors, such as Rosemary Sutcliff, especially as they belonged to the same publishing house. If a friend knows another is unwell and wishes to send love and good wishes to them, what could be more natural than sending something “homemade” or personal with the wish? For most of us it would be a pot of home made jam, or a bunch of garden flowers, between authors, first editions of their new book! What an addition to a collection. To be able to think that Elizabeth would at least have had the letter read to her, if not actually held it. The very books themselves must have come from her library. I think that along with Parson Hawthorne (‘The White Witch’) Elizabeth held books to be ‘the best of the earthly meats’, and how rich a new book could make them both feel. These books have now become a treasured part of my collection, a nugget of gold in a jewelled casket of books.”

    Full text of Deborah Gaudin’s post here:
    http://www.elizabethgoudge.org/Postings/Paper%20Treasure.htm

    As we know from another of Anthony’s posts, EG sent a signed copy of her book “The White Witch” to Rosemary Sutcliff, so this friendly exchange of work was a two-way thing.
    http://rosemarysutcliff.com/2012/02/07/rosemary-sutcliff-loved-elizabeth-goudges-novels-signed-copy-of-the-white-witch/

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  2. One of my personal favourite “aha” moments comes in “Knight’s Fee”, set in 12th century Norman England. While out overnighting in the Sussex Downs hills with an old shepherd, young Randal holds in his hand an ancient flint axe he recognises instinctively as having been made for a man “left-handed or one-handed”, and in that haunting moment touches Drem of “Warrior Scarlet”, its owner in the ninth century BC. This scene is a powerful expression of Sutcliff’s belief in the living land as the ongoing wellspring of continuity throughout the ages (and perhaps even of her belief in reincarnation), and sends a tingle up the spine.

    “’I’ll show you a thing’, Lewin said to Randal. He put in the boy’s hand a thing somewhat like a double axe-head made from flint…Without knowing quite why he did so, for he was not left-handed, Randal put out his left hand for it, and felt his fingers close over it as something infinitely familiar. But he had never seen such an object before….

    The thing he held was suddenly warm as though fresh from the knapper’s hand, and the outer crust of the centuries all gone like a little dust, leaving the beautiful, dark blue flint in all its newness. It was as though the thing flowered in his hands. He had an extraordinary sense of kinship with the unknown man who had first closed his fingers over that strange weapon; … an extraordinary feeling of oneness with Dean, of some living bond running back through the blue, living flint, making him part of other men and sheep and wolves, and they part of him.

    This was the true seisin.”

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  3. I first heard a Rosemary Sutcliffe story when I was in Primary School in the 1960s. We had a student teacher on teaching practise and each afternoon, for 30 minutes, we were invited to rest our heards on the desk, close our eyes and listen as she read ‘A Knight’s Fee’ . Magical moments which stayed with me all my life and sparked an interest in history. My children have both read many of her books, with my younger boy buying a copy of ‘The Lantern Bearers’ whilst visiting Housesteads Fort and receiving the DVD ‘The Eagle’ for Christmas!

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    • David, thank you for commenting with this memory of Knight’s Fee by Rosemary Sutcliff (gentle nudge, Sutcliff has no E). She would have loved this evidence of her appeal as a story-teller – and, it would seem, of a skilful story-reader. I should re-read Knight’s Fee …

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  4. And if anyone’s ever idly wondered where Clusium was, it was an ancient Etruscan city, one of the Etrurian confederacy that fought it out with Rome for supremacy in the early days. Clusium did eventually become subjected to Rome.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clusium

    As for why Rosemary Sutcliff used it for her famous legionary marching song in “The Eagle of the Ninth”, I think the answer lies in her early schooling. She mentions in her autobiography, “Blue Remembered Hills”, just how much she and her classmates enjoyed declaiming Macaulay’s stirring poem, “Horatius (at the Bridge)”. Who could forget that image of Horatius and his two comrades gallantly holding the Pons Sublicius against the invading army of Lars Porsena, king of Clusium in the late 6th century BC, during the war between Rome and Clusium?

    Meanwhile the Tuscan army, right glorious to behold,
    Came flashing back the noonday light,
    Rank behind rank, like surges bright of a broad sea of gold.
    Four hundred trumpets sounded a peal of warlike glee,
    As that great host, with measured tread, and spears advanced, and ensigns spread,
    Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head where stood the dauntless Three.

    http://www.englishverse.com/poems/horatius

    Here are Rosemary Sutcliff’s own words, so you can see the effect Macaulay’s poem had upon her young sensibilities.

    “We learned verse upon verse of Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ and proclaimed them with glorious fierceness, stiffening the sinews, summoning up the blood and lending the eyes a terrible aspect under the beetling brows of imaginary helmets:

    ‘Lars Porsena of Clusium, by the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it, and named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and West and South and North,
To summon his array.’

    Who were the Nine Gods? What wrong was the great house of Tarquin suffering? We had no idea. But the lines have the true trumpet ring to them yet; the purposeful tramp of a legion’s feet on the march.”

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  6. Somehow I missed reading Rosemary Sutcliff when I was a child, but better late than never! (I’m 56 years old.) I have declared this to be “Rosemary Sutcliff Summer” and am reading every one of her books that I can get my hands on. Am anxiously awaiting the arrival of a copy of “Blue Remembered Hills” which I ordered online last week, and am nearly finished reading “Eagle of the Ninth.” Am also looking forward to her Arthurian tales–it’s going to be a great summer, filled with exceptional reading, thanks to Rosemary Sutcliff!

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  7. Sent to me by Mary Young on16 May, 2012

    Dear Anthony
    When I was young, I recall listening to Children’s Hour in which The Eagle of the Ninth was serialised. I loved it. Now I’m 65, and have just started to read the book! It’s such a beautiful book…atmospheric and informative. I live in Yeovil, Somerset, so I have plenty of Roman traces all around!

    With kind wishes,
    Mary Young

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  8. Delighted to see this Rosemary Sutcliffe site! I adore her books – my favourites, I think, are Warrior Scarlet, Song for a Dark Queen and Frontier Wolf (which I think of whenever I go to Hadrian’s Wall), and her beautiful telling of Tristan and Iseult is, for me, the definitive version of that sad story. I wrote a fan letter to her when I was about 12, and was delighted beyond measure to receive a handwritten reply. She told me about how real her characters were to her, and how delighted she was to know that other people loved them as much as she did. I can’t wait until my son is old enough to read them too.

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  10. Antony, could you commission someone to write Rosemary’s biography? I think it is scandalous that so great a writer (and so wonderful a friend) should not have a study done of her, except for Margaret Meek’s.

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    • It requires the right person, at the right time… And a couple of significant possibilities have come and gone. I and ‘her’ agents have it in view, so one day… for I too would like to see such a study, but only an excellent one.

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