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, some of her novels were specifically written for adults. In a 1986 interview she said, "I would claim that my books are for children of all ages, from nine to ninety."
For her contribution as a children's writer Sutcliff was a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1974.
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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 affected by Still's disease when she was very young, and used a wheelchair most of her life. 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 illness. 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.
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. 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

Blue Remembered Hills: A recollection ; Sutcliff's memoir of her childhood and young adulthood.

Other non-fiction

Houses and History, illustrated by William StobbsRudyard Kipling, a monographHeroes and History, illus. Charles KeepingA Saxon Settler, illus. John Lawrence

''Eagle of the Ninth'' series

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.The Lantern Bearers Sword at Sunset Tristan and Iseult ; retells the story of Tristan and Iseult
King Arthur Stories: Three Books in One, or The King Arthur Trilogy, is an omnibus edition of the Arthurian Trilogy.

Other children's novels

The Chronicles of Robin Hood, illus. C. Walter Hodges—Sutcliff's first published bookThe Queen Elizabeth Story illus. C. Walter HodgesThe Armourer's House illus. C. Walter HodgesBrother Dusty-Feet, illus. by C. Walter HodgesSimon, illus. Richard Kennedy, cover art by William Stobbs; set during the 17th-century English Civil WarOutcast, illus. Richard KennedyWarrior Scarlet, illus. Charles KeepingKnight's Fee, illus. Charles KeepingBridge Builders, illus. Douglas Relf, about the building of Hadrian's Wall. Originally published as a short story in Another Six : Stories by Richard Armstrong, William Mayne, Noel Streatfeild, Patricia Lynch, A. Philippa Pearce, Rosemary Sutcliff. UK: Blackwell, 1959.Beowulf: Dragonslayer illus. Charles Keeping; retells the Beowulf storyThe Hound of Ulster, illus. Victor Ambrus; retells the story of CúchulainnThe Mark of the Horse Lord, illus. Charles Keeping;The Chief's Daughter, illus. Victor Ambrus;The High Deeds of Finn MacCool, illus. Michael CharletonA Circlet of Oak Leaves, illus. Victor AmbrusThe Witch's Brat, illus. Richard LebensonThe Truce of the Games, illus. Victor AmbrusHeather, Oak, and Olive, illus. Victor Ambrus; a collection of three dramatic stories: "The Chief's Daughter", "A Circlet of Oak Leaves", and "A Crown of Wild Olive" The Capricorn Bracelet, illus. Charles Keeping ; six stories, linked by a Roman armilla, that originated as radio scriptsThe Changeling, illus. Victor AmbrusWe Lived in Drumfyvie, by Sutcliff and Margaret Lyford-Pike. "The authors combine their talents to recreate 700 years in the life of an imaginary Scottish burgh. The folk of Drumfyvie tell their own stories."Blood Feud, illus. Charles Keeping. Adapted as a TV movie in 1990, titled Sea Dragon.Sun Horse, Moon Horse, illus. Shirley FeltsShifting Sands, illus. Laslzo AcsSong for a Dark Queen ; retells the story of Queen BoudicaEagle's Egg, illus. Victor AmbrusBonnie Dundee, the story of John Graham, 1st Viscount of Dundee, and the Jacobite rising of 1689Flame-coloured Taffeta, illus. Rachel BirkettThe Roundabout Horse illus. Alan MarksA Little Dog Like You illus. Jane JohnsonThe Best of Rosemary Sutcliff, illus. Charles Keeping—omnibus edition of Warrior Scarlet, The Mark of the Horse Lord, and Knight's Fee Little Hound Found illus. Joy DaviesThe Minstrel and the Dragon Pup, illus. by Emma Chichester Clark; also serialised in CricketBlack Ships Before Troy, illus. Alan Lee; retells the Iliad story; also serialised in CricketChess-Dream in a Garden, illus. Ralph Thompson A fantasy for children inspired by the Lewis Chessmen.The Wanderings of Odysseus, illus. Alan Lee; retells the Odyssey story

Novels for adults

Lady in Waiting ; set in Tudor England, the story of Bess Throckmorton, wife of Sir Walter RaleighThe Rider of the White Horse ; set during the 17th-century English Civil War, about Parliamentarian general Sir Thomas Fairfax and his wife Anne who travelled on campaign with himSword at Sunset ; set in sub-Roman Britain, a story of King Arthur as the Romano-Celtic warrior prince he may have been; part of The Eagle of the Ninth seriesThe Flowers of Adonis ; set in ancient Greece, about the brilliant but erratic Athenian general Alkibiades and the Peloponnesian WarBlood and Sand ; set during the Napoleonic Wars, based on the life of the soldier Thomas Keith.

Other works

Plays, screenplays and film

The New Laird. Radio play, Broadcast 17 May 1966.Ghost Story. Film. Screenplay with Stephen Weeks and Philip Norman, 1974.Mary Bedell. Stage play. Produced London, 1986.The Eagle of the Ninth. Stage play with Mary Rensten.

Articles

  • "History Is People". A paper distributed at a conference on Children's Literature in Education, Exeter, England, 1971. Reprinted in Children and Literature: Views and Reviews, edited by Virginia Haviland, pp. 305–312 Scott, Foresman 1973, pp. 305–312
  • "Combined Ops". Junior Bookshelf 24 :121–27. Reprinted in Egoff, Only Connect: Readings on Children's Literature, 1st ed., pp. 244–48; 2d ed., pp. 284–88. Describes the process of writing Eagle of the Ninth and The Lantern Bearers.

Collected papers

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

  • Margaret Meek, Rosemary Sutcliff, New York, Henry Z. Walck,, a brief biographical monograph and critical study.
  • John Rowe Townsend, "Rosemary Sutcliff", a critical essay in A Sense of Story: Essays on Contemporary Writers for Children, London, Longman, 1971, pp. 193–99. Reissued as A Sounding of Storytellers.
  • Barbara L. Talcroft, Death of the Corn King: King and Goddess in Rosemary Sutcliff's Historical Novels for Young Adults, Metuchen, New Jersey and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1995.
  • Miriam Youngerman Miller, "The Rhythm of a Tongue: Literary Dialect in Rosemary Sutcliff's Novels of the Middle Ages for Children", Children's Literature Association Quarterly 19:1, Spring 1994, pp. 25–31.
  • Hilary Wright, Shadows on the Downs: Some Influences of Rudyard Kipling on Rosemary Sutcliff. Children's Literature in Education 12, No. 2:90-102 The Search for Selfhood: The Historical Novels of Rosemary Sutcliff. TLS : Essays and Reviews from the Times Literary Supplement, 17 June 1965, p. 498. Reprinted in Only Connect: Readings on children's literature, ed. Sheila Egoff et al. Toronto New York: Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 249–255.
  • Abby Mims, Rosemary Sutcliff in British Writers: Supplement 16. Ed. Jay Parini. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2010. Web: Gale Literature Resource Center.

Awards

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.