Book covers of historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff King Arthur novels and retellings
Tag: children’s literature
Eagle of the Ninth author Rosemary Sutcliff wins Carnegie Medal for The Lantern Bearers | 1959
Historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff won the top UK literary children’s book award from the Library Association, the Carnegie Medal, for The Lantern Bearers in 1959.
The Carnegie Medal is awarded every year in the UK to the writer of an outstanding book for children. Read More »
Science fiction writer Philip Reeve recommends Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth and Warrior Scarlet
Philip Reeve fears that the ‘beautiful’ writing of historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff is in danger of being forgotten. Author of The Mortal Engines Quartet (someone once called it ‘alternative history’ not ‘science fiction’) and the Larklight in 2009, Reeve wrote in The Daily Telegraph of his fears.
With so many good new books for children being published all the time, I sometimes fear that the classics of my childhood are in danger of being forgotten. So I’d recommend Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels, particularly Warrior Scarlet and The Eagle of the Ninth – cracking adventures, beautifully written, filled with a profound sense of the British landscape and its past.
According to the curious and enchanting Larklight website,:
Mr Philip Reeve was born and raised in the bustling seaside slum of Brighton. Like all residents of that vile town he fled as soon as he was able, and now lives in a secluded cottage on Dartmoor, where frequent encounters with gigantic house spiders and fruitless efforts to preserve his tweed and serge against the voracious moth have given Mr Reeve a deep understanding of Art Mumby’s plight. He is the author of the bestselling Mortal Engines quartet.
- For summary of the stories of Warrior Scarlet and The Eagle of the Ninth see here
Source: The Daily Telegraph , July 4, 2009 ; The Guardian, September 30, 2006 Saturday Review p20.
The Economist praises Blood Feud by Rosemary Sutcliff
Every morning, at the same time, Rosemary Sutcliff would walk though to her study where, leaning on the walking stick she always used, first she would open her post and then read the Daily Telegraph. I do not think that I ever saw her reading The Economist, nor indeed did I ever see a copy of it in her study in Sussex. But I am sure that she would have read and welcomed its review of Blood Feud in 1976:
The chasm between children’s and adults’ literature narrows to a crack in historical fiction. In Blood Feud it is scarcely visible at all,Read More »
Rosemary Sutcliff’s award-winning historical novel Song for a Dark Queen reviewed in The Times in 1978
Rosemary Sutcliff was astonished but delighted when her novel about Boudicca (often wrongly spelt Boadicea) – Song for a Dark Queen -won The Other Award for fiction. It was an award for books which were determinedly egalitarian and respectful of women. She was not sure what those responsible for it would have thought of her Telegraph-reading Tory politics. Read More »
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 