Rosemary Sutcliff


Rosemary Sutcliff was an English novelist best known for children's books, especially historical fiction and retellings of myths and legends. Although she was primarily a children's author, the quality and depth of her writing also appeals to adults. In a 1986 interview she said, "I would claim that my books are for children of all ages, from nine to ninety." Some of her novels were specifically written for adults.
For her contribution as a children's writer Sutcliff was a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1974.

Biography

Sutcliff was born 14 December 1920 to George Ernest Sutcliff and his wife Nessie Elizabeth, née Lawton, in East Clandon, Surrey. She spent her childhood in Malta and various naval bases where her father, a Royal Navy officer, was stationed. She was stricken with Still's disease when she was very young, and used a wheelchair most of her life; her ability to describe landscape and geographical details in her writing is the more remarkable given she could often get no closer than the nearest road. Due to her chronic illness, Sutcliff spent most of her time with her mother from whom she learned many of the Celtic and Saxon legends that she would later expand into works of historical fiction. Sutcliff's early schooling was constantly interrupted by moving house and her disabling condition. She did not learn to read until she was nine years of age, and left school at age 14 to enter the Bideford Art School, which she attended for three years, graduating from the General Art Course. Sutcliff then worked as a painter of miniatures.
near Sutcliff's long-time home in Sussex and the setting of several of her novels.
Inspired by the children's historical novels of Geoffrey Trease, her first published book was The Chronicles of Robin Hood in 1950. In 1954, she published what remains her best-known work The Eagle of the Ninth, part of a series on Roman Britain and its aftermath; they were not written as such or in sequential order but connected by the linking device of an emerald ring, passed down through generations of the same family. Between 1954 and 1958, Sutcliff's works The Eagle of the Ninth, its sequel The Silver Branch, Outcast and Warrior Scarlet were runners-up in the annual Carnegie Medal, given by the Library Association to the year's best children's book by a British subject. She finally won the Medal for her third book in the Eagle series, The Lantern Bearers. Where the first two books and one subsequent one were set in Roman Britain, The Lantern Bearers immediately follows the withdrawal of the Roman Empire, when the British people are threatened by remaining Germanic troops and by invaders.
Sutcliff was Carnegie runner-up again for her retelling of the Arthurian legend in Tristan and Iseult, which in 1971 won the American Horn Book Award. In 1985, The Mark of the Horse Lord was the inaugural winner of the Phoenix Award, created by the Children's Literature Association to recognise the best English-language children's book that did not win a major award when originally published twenty years earlier. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity. The Shining Company won the same award in 2010.
Sutcliff lived for many years in Walberton near Arundel, Sussex. In 1975, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to children's literature, and later Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1992. She wrote incessantly throughout her life and was still doing so on the morning of her death in 1992. Sutcliff never married and had no children.

Books

Autobiography

The series, also referred to as 'Marcus' is linked by the Aquila family dolphin ring and listed here in fictional chronological order.
  1. The Eagle of the Ninth, illus. C. Walter Hodges ‡
  2. The Silver Branch, illus. Charles Keeping ‡
  3. Frontier Wolf
  4. The Lantern Bearers
  5. Sword at Sunset ; "officially for adults"
  6. Dawn Wind, illus. Charles Keeping
  7. Sword Song
  8. The Shield Ring, illus. C. Walter Hodges
‡ Three Legions, or Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles, is an omnibus edition of the original Eagle of the Ninth trilogy.

Arthurian novels

Raymond Thompson credits Sutcliff with "some of the finest contemporary recreations of the Arthurian story" and names these seven works. The first two are also part of the Eagle of the Ninth series that attempt to depict Arthur as an actual historical figure.
King Arthur Stories: Three books in one, or The King Arthur Trilogy, is an omnibus edition of the Arthurian Trilogy.

Other children's novels

Plays and screenplays

In 1966 Sutcliff made a small donation to the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The Sutcliff Papers include a manuscript and two typescripts for the radio play The New Laird. That programme was taped 4 April 1966 and broadcast from Edinburgh on 17 May 1966 as part of the Stories from Scottish History series. The collection also includes a small red composition book of research notes for The Lantern Bearers and for two unpublished works, The Amber Dolphin and The Red Dragon.

Works about Sutcliff

The biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award conferred by the International Board on Books for Young People is the highest recognition available to a writer or illustrator of children's books. Sutcliff was one of three runners-up for the writing award in 1974.
She won several awards for particular works.
Besides winning the 1959 Carnegie Medal, Sutcliff was a commended runner-up five times. Alan Lee, who illustrated Sutcliff's posthumously published retellings of The Iliad and The Odyssey, won the companion Kate Greenaway Medal for the former, Black Ships Before Troy.