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The 1997 Encyclopedia of Fantasy view on eminent award-winnng British writer Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-92) | “An imagination … powerful enough to create startling pictures of what could have been.

27/03/20182018 by Anthony Lawton

Collection of Rosemary Sutcliff covers via Google Images March 2016

Collection of Rosemary Sutcliff covers via Google Images March 2016

According to The  Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) the “ability to create a realistic historical novel for children is in a sense one of the most testing challenges of the fantastist’s art”. Rosemary Sutcliff’s “masterpieces of historical fiction are vivid re-creations rather than attempts to portray historical fact through story. While rarely straying beyond the boundaries of what could have happened in the later centuries of Roman rule in Britain and the succeeding Dark Ages, Rosemary Sutcliff, like her mentor Rudyard Kipling, set herself to describe history as part of a temporal tapestry.” ”Thus The Eagle of the Ninth (1954), while containing at least one darkly numinous and certainly trans-real scene when its hero Marcus discovers the lost legion’s missing standard in a British shrine, is told very much in the manner of a tale of the Imperial Northwest Frontier, with Marcus in the role of English subaltern and the Druid-inspired uprisings reminiscent of Indian struggles against the Raj. Suceeding novels, such as The Silver Branch (1957) and The Lantern Bearers (1959), portray Marcus’s descendants, with the Romans and British developing elements of each other’s culture and facing another wave of conquest and immigration from the Anglo-Saxons.” ”We see the beginning of the Matter of Britain in the latter novel and in the adult novel Sword at Sunset (1964) which depicts Artos, illegitimate nephew of Ambrosius the High King, as a warlord fighting the Saxon tribes to keep alight the memory of the Romano-British nation. In the events Rosemary Sutcliff describes – especially the ambiguity of Artos’s relationship with the incest-born Medraut and his use of the moon daisy, element of the White Goddess, to unite old faiths and new at the Battle of Badon – are both the Arthur of the later chroniclers and the seed of the later romances.” Rosemary Sutcliff turned again and again to this period, revisiting the Romano-British ‘frontier’ in Mark of the Horse Lord (1965) – a fierce study of espionage and assumed identity – and Frontier Wolf (1980). She retold Saxon and Irish legends such as Beowulf (1961; retitled Dragon Slayer 1966) and The Hound of Ulster (1963), and returned to the Dark Ages in The Shining Company (1990) – based on the Welsh poem The Gododdin – and in retellings of the Arthur-story in The Sword and the Circle (1981) and The Road to Camlann (1981). She also wrote about Greece in The Flowers of Adonis (1965), a study of the Athenian Alcibades which provides a multifaceted picture of a charming but hollow genius. Apart from the Marcus sequence, though, perhaps her finest novel – and certainly the most akin to fantasy – is Warrior Scarlet (1958), in which Drem, a boy of a Bronze Age tribe, overcomes the disability of a withered arm to become a warrior. Within the limits of a book for children, this is as powerful as possible a picture of a putative shamanistic society, with the sun-worshipping Golden People contrasted with the outcast Half People from whom they have wrested the Land.” “Apart from occasional suggestions of paranormal powers, Rosemary Sutcliff remains a realistic writer, exploring the history of our here and now. But her imagination was powerful enough to create startling pictures of what could have been. via Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) – Sutcliff, Rosemary.

Posted in Criticism, Reviews, Research, Awards, Warrior Scarlet | Tagged | 1 Comment »

The distinctive features of historical novelist and children’s Rosemary Sutcliff’s ministrel’s magic

26/03/20182018 by Anthony Lawton

Signature of Rosemary Sutcliff showing her name is not Sutcliffe with an E Helen  posted  a comment on this blog about on “the features which make up the ‘sum of parts’ that are a Rosemary Sutcliff  novel” and  “the indefinable minstrel’s magic that makes it all alive”:
  • A hero, set apart from his peers both by his injury and his past
  • Landscape and the seasons as living entities in themselves
  • Friendship
  • Adventure
  • Scenes of slow tension and thrilling escape
  • Flashes of both humour and horror
  • The sense and quest for justice and fairness
  • The clash of two worlds and the places where the distance narrows to nothing between them
  • The relationship between man and dog, and to a lesser degree, man and horse
  • The slow romance
  • Understanding of a military world
  • A hopeful, ‘song of new beginnings’ ending
  • Devon!

Posted in Criticism, Reviews, Research, Awards, Lady in Waiting | 4 Comments »

British writer Rosemary Sutcliff re-makes and re-tells legends of Robin Hood, King Arthur, Beowulf, Tristan and Iseult, Finn Mac Cool and Cuchulain, the Iliad, the Odyssey

25/03/20182018 by Anthony Lawton

Portrait of historical novelist and children’s author Rosemary Sutcliff by Mark Gerson Always at the same writing desk, seated in an old captain’s chair, Rosemary Sutcliff imagined a rich cast of characters to people her historical novels. But many of her works also draw heavily on legend. In her first published book in 1950, she re-worked her  Chronicles of Robin Hood. The best-selling Sword at Sunset in 1963, written for adults, re-made the story of King Arthur. Later in her writing career, she created a trilogy of books aimed at children and young people retelling the tale of Arthur again—The Light Behind the Forest: The Quest for the Holy Grail (1979), The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1981), and The Road to Camlann: The Death of King Arthur (1981). She  also wrote novels re-making the stories of Beowulf, Tristan and Iseult, and the Irish heroes Finn Mac Cool and Cuchulain, The Hound of Ulster, as well as re-telling Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey

Posted in Beowulf, Novels, Stories & Books, Sword at Sunset, Sword at Sunset, The Chronicles of Robin Hood, The Eagle of the Ninth, The High Deeds of Finn MacCool, The Hound of Ulster, The Road to Camlann, The Sword and the Circle, The Wanderings of Odysseus, Tristan and Iseult, Tristan and Iseult | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Brandon Turner’s Six Tips for Writing Investment Books

24/03/20182018 by Anthony Lawton

Photo of author Brandon Turner

 Investment books are hard to write, as you need to have the experience to be able to provide insight that could potentially save people from making costly mistakes. Investing in cryptocurrencies requires up-to-date knowledge and strategic insight. Several books offer foundational understanding and investment strategies. Staying informed about new Binance listings is crucial, as emerging tokens can present lucrative opportunities. Combining comprehensive education with awareness of market developments enhances one’s ability to navigate the dynamic crypto landscape effectively.
  1. Surround yourself with successful investors.
  2. Read more on the subject and learn how to buy shares in a company.
  3. Try to connect with the reader.
  4. Start as close to the end as possible.
  5. Write to please just one person.
  6. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. Readers should have such complete understanding of what you write, the strategies that work and why.
Source: Medium

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The Dolphin Ring appears in eight award-winning books by Rosemary Sutcliff, world-renowned writer of historical fiction for children and adults

23/03/20182018 by Anthony Lawton

Careful reading of the historical fiction for adults and children of Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-92) reveals that the same Dolphin Ring with a dolphin design on a flawed emerald was the Flavius family signet ring which threads through eight of her novels: The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, Frontier Wolf, The Lantern Bearers, Sword at Sunset, Dawn Wind, Sword Song, & The Shield Ring.

Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Writer of historical fiction Rosemary Sutcliff had a “mystical communion with the past” and an “uncanny sense of place”

22/03/20182018 by Anthony Lawton

Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-1992) had several editors during her long writing career which produced over 60 books. One editor wrote (in a website post that I can no longer trace):
(Rosemary Sutcliff) had, as did Henry Treece, a mystical communion with the past, which enabled her both to recreate tiny details, and to confound military historians with her understanding of the art of battle in any situation she cared to devise. Her sense of place was uncanny, in that she could get no nearer to a site than the seat of a car on an adjacent road. Friends often served as her eyes, and also as her researchers, but it was the conclusions she drew from the evidence, and her re-creations of them, that made her contribution to the literature about the ancient world so distinctive. Where she was simply embellishing recorded history, she was no better than anyone else. She also had one of the rudest senses of humour in anyone I have met.”

Posted in General | 2 Comments »

Is the Carnegie Medal for outstanding writer for children and young people in English moving away from children’s books?

21/03/20182018 by Anthony Lawton

UK Hardback Cover Rosemary Sutcliff The Lantern Bearers in 1959 Rosemary Sutcliff was the proud recepient of the Carnegie Medal for 1959 for her Roman historical novel  ( “I write for children aged 8 to 88”) The Lantern Bearers. An intriguing question is posed this year (2018) by Children’s Literature Lecturer Lucy Pearson about the focus of books awarded the Carnegie Medal. She questions whether the award is moving away from children’s books. The “short version” of her thesis is that “the Carnegie has definitely seen a massive swing in favour of YA (Young Adults) in the last decade”. Her notion of whether a book is for children or for young adults is based on a combination of the readership aimed at, and the age of the protagonists. Rosemary Sutcliff wrote for children of all ages, about people of all ages. She was promoted in the 1950s to adults as for children and juveniles (sic). She was no stranger to the Carnegie Medal. She was commended  in 1954 for The Eagle of the Ninth, 1956 for The Shield Ring, and 1957 for The Silver Branch. Authors originally could not be awarded the medal a second time. But by 1971 they could, and Rosemary Sutcliff was ‘highly commended’ for The Carnegie Medal for Tristan and Iseult in 1971 Source: https://carnegieproject.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/ya-and-the-carnegie-medal-growing-away-from-childrens-books/s

Posted in Criticism, Reviews, Research, Awards, The Eagle of the Ninth Book, The Lantern Bearers, The Shield Ring, The Silver Branch, Tristan and Iseult | Leave a Comment »

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