Tag: children’s literature

Illustrator C. Walter Hodges illustrated Rosemary Sutcliff books

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A while back I noted that English illustrator Cyril Walter Hodges, known as C. Walter Hodges (1909-2004),  worked on Rosemary Sutcliff’s early books. Born in Beckenham and educated at Dulwich College and Goldsmiths’ College, he spent most of his career as a freelance illustrator. He wrote:

Rosemary Sutcliff I also liked very much. Her work was very good, though rather sweet, but that was because she was very crippled. As soon as I met her I realised where this romantic sweetness came from. . . . When illustrating her books one realised that one was responsible to her for what one was doing in her name. After I’d illustrated some Sutcliff novels, other artists like Charles Keeping illustrated her work and to my mind, did a much better job. I was very envious of Keeping—I thought he did marvellous drawings. I knew I could never do it like that!

Source:  Mathew Eve’s article  ‘C. Walter Hodges: A Life Illustrating History Children’s Literature’ in the journal Education (Vol. 35, No. 2, June 2004)

Rosemary Sutcliff (1920 – 1992) | “Historical writer of genius ” | Born today December 14th

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From the cover of Rosemary Sutcliff's autobiography The Blue Remembered Hills

Rosemary Sutcliff’s Beowulf still enthrals modern readers, young and old | Rosemary Sutcliff Discovery of the Day

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Blogger Zornhau reads children’s writer and historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff’s classic retelling of Beowulf to his son Kurtzhau.

The two of us together live through the dragon fight, the flight of Beowulf’s thanes, all except Wiglaf who tips the balance in his lord’s favor. Now Beowulf lies dying, poisoned by dragon venom.

Kurtzhau and I both hold each other, sharing a blast of emotions from our ancestors’ cold Dark Ages.

Abruptly, Kurtzhau slips off the bed and rummages with his plastic figures.

“Oh well,” I think. “He’s done pretty well for a—”

He bounces back to join me and thrusts a Playmobil barbarian at me. “This guy can be Wiglaf from now on. Now read the end!”

Afterwards, he’s outraged that the story is so short, and we talk about how lucky we are to have the story at all, and about bards and praise singers, and the irony that the two episodes of Beowulf’s life to come down to us are the ones that emphatically did not happen.

“What happened to Wiglaf?”

I shrug. “Was there a theory he lead a Germanic tribe to Britain? Sorry – I can’t remember and we’ve no Internet access here. But if there were any poems about him, they’re lost.”

Kurtzhau considers. “Somebody ought to write a sequel.

Source: Zornhau’s blog

More about Beowulf on this site

Rosemary Sutcliff a favourite author of Philip Reeve

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

The Eagle of the Ninth and Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliff are two of best-selling author and illustrator Philip Reeve‘s favourite books, as recounted  on his own website.

… or I could have chosen Knight’s Fee, or The Lantern Bearers, or Sun-horse, Moon-horse, or Frontier Wolf…  Rosemary Sutcliff is one of my favourite children’s authors, and I doubt she ever wrote a bad book, but these were the two I liked best when I was growing up. Read More »

Rosemary Sutcliff on writing historical fiction for adults and children | Sutcliff Discovery of the Day

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Rosemary Sutcliff once said of her writing:

“The themes of my children’s books are mostly quite adult, and in fact the difference between writing for children and for adults is, to me at any rate, only a quite small gear change.”

Source: Townsend, John Rowe. 1971. A Sense of Story. London: Longman p. 201