Tag: History

US School guides summer reading of Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

I found that a US School – St Sebastian’s in Needham, MA – was encouraging summer reading of Rosemary Sutcliff’s children’s historical novel  The Eagle of the Ninth. I was delighted of course, but wondered if the questions would encourage an emotional and reflective, as well as descriptive, reaction to the novel. Am I being churlish?

History 8 – Summer Reading Guide

The Eagle of The Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff Where does this historical novel take place?

What are the modern day countries that the story takes place in?

In your atlas find each of the places mentioned in the List of Place-Names at the back of the book.

How does these locations relate to the Roman Empire?

Who are the characters in this novel?

How do they fit in to the Roman Empire?

What are some differences between the Roman occupiers and the native residents of the north and the south?

If you have seen the movie, what differences are there from the book?

Arthurian Fiction

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A while back I was alerted by a commenter to “a nice academic site which has reviews of several works of Arthurian fiction”, here. The author is Professor Howard Wisemanof Griffith University in Australia, a theoretical scientist by trade. The Lantern Bearers and Sword of Sunset are reviewed here, and “come off better than most”.

Lindsey Davis’s Top Ten Roman books includes The Eagle of the Ninth | The Guardian

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff was in Lindsey Davis’s top ten Roman books in The Guardian in February 2009. Davis has written the Falco Roman detective novels.

“Somewhere about the year 117AD, the Ninth Legion, which was stationed at Eboracum, where York now stands, marched north to deal with a rising among the Caledonian tribes, and was never heard of again.” Hooked? If not, there’s no hope for you. A wonderful novel, for children of all ages.

The full list of books was:

  1. Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Jérôme Carcopino
  2. Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome by Lesley Adkins and Roy A Adkins
  3. Rome and Her Empire by Barry Cunliffe
  4. Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide by Amanda Claridge
  5. The Colosseum by Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard
  6. Ancient Inventions by Peter James and Nick Thorpe
  7. The Lost World of Pompeii by Colin Amery and Brian Curran Jr
  8. Roman Britain by Keith Branigan.
  9. The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff
  10. I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Rosemary Sutcliff’s unique gift for character and description in The Lantern Bearers

Anthony Lawton3 Comments

The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff won the Carnegie Medal in 1959. An American reviewer has said …

I discovered Rosemary Sutcliff in my early teens, and she quickly became one of my favorite authors. I can still vividly recapture the magic of reading her books. It was a real pleasure to return to The Lantern Bearers, which I first read when I was about thirteen, and find the magic still intact…

The Lantern Bearers is a wonderful book. Sutcliff possesses a unique gift for character and description, evoking a sense of place and person so intense that the reader can almost see her characters and the world in which they move. She has a matchless ability to establish historical context without a surfeit of the “let’s learn a history lesson now” exposition that mars many historical novels for young people. Her books are never less than meticulously researched, but her recreation of the past is so effortless that one has no sense of academic exercise, but rather of a world as close and immediate as everyday.

…  The Arthurian theme was one of Sutcliff’s favorites: she produced several young adult books on the subject, as well as a beautiful adult novel, Sword at Sunset, to my mind one of the best ever written in this genre. But the Sutcliff‘s Arthur is rooted as much in history as in myth–not just the tragic king of Le Morte d’Arthur or the heroic/magical figure of traditional Arthurian fantasy, but a man who might actually have existed, heir both to the memory of Rome and to the last great flowering of Celtic power in Britain.
…  her enduring popularity … is richly merited: she is, quite simply, one of the best.

Copyright © 1997 Victoria Strauss

The Eagle conveys a real sense of the Roman past

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As a child Dr Miles Russell, now senior lecturer in Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology at Bournemouth University, “endlessly read (and re-read)” Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 novel The Eagle of the Ninth . In fact he recalls that it was “to the point of being able to quote whole chunks of text verbatim. Not healthy, perhaps, but it meant that I approached the film The Eagle with both excitement and apprehension. That a film of Sutcliff’s book had finally been made was thrilling; but there is always the fear of cinematic disaster”. He has reviewed  The Eagle for the BBC History magazine.

The film is beautifully constructed and lovingly shot. Hadrian’s Wall has never looked so real (dirty and windswept, its garrison is cold and miserable), whilst the land beyond the reach of Rome has never seemed so alien and otherworldly (with its thick forests and landscapes of jagged stone).  Read More »