Rosemary Sutcliff (1920–1992)
Author of The Eagle of the Ninth
About the Author
Rosemary Sutcliff was on born December 14, 1920 in East Clandon in Surrey, England. As a child she had Still's Disease, a form of juvenile arthritis. The effect of this led to many stays in hospital for painful remedial operations. She ended her formal education at fourteen, and went to Bideford show more Art School. She passed the City and Guilds examination and worked as a painter of miniatures. She felt cramped by the small canvas of miniature painting and turned to writing. Her first two books, The Chronicles of Robin Hood and The Queen Elizabeth Story, were published in 1950. Her other works included The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, Sword Song, and the autobiography Blue Remembered Hills. She won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for The Lantern Bearers in 1959 and the annual Horn Book Award for Tristan and Iseult in 1971. She won inaugural Phoenix Award in 1985 for The Mark of the Horse Lord and again in 2010 for The Shining Company. In 1975, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to children's literature, and was promoted to be a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1992. She died on July 23, 1992. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1979) 749 copies, 6 reviews
Best of Rosemary Sutcliff:Warrior Scarlet,Mark of the Horse Lord and Knight's Fee (1987) 84 copies, 1 review
The Man Who Died At Sea 1 copy
Writing a Historical Novel 1 copy
Dawn Wind 1 copy
Mystery ranch 1 copy
The eagle of the Ninth 1 copy
Frontier Wind 1 copy
Flowering Dagger 1 copy
Associated Works
Within the Hollow Hills: An Anthology of New Celtic Writing (1994) — Contributor — 36 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1920-12-14
- Date of death
- 1992-07-23
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Bideford Art School
- Occupations
- novelist
children's book author - Awards and honors
- Order of the British Empire (Officer ∙ 1975)
Order of the British Empire (Commander ∙ 1992) - Short biography
- Rosemary Sutcliff was born in England and spent her childhood in Malta and various other naval bases at which her father, a Royal Navy officer, was stationed. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and used a wheelchair most of her life. She left school at age 14 and entered Bideford Art School, which she attended for three years. She worked as a painter of miniatures and began her published writing career in 1950 with The Chronicles of Robin Hood. Her best-known work, The Eagle of the Ninth, was published in 1954. Although she was considered primarily a children's author, much of her work also appeals to adults. Sutcliff won many awards for her writing, and is published worldwide. She never married.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- East Clandon, Surrey, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Arundel, Sussex, England, UK
Surrey, England, UK
Malta
London, Middlesex, England, UK - Place of death
- Chichester, West Sussex, England, UK
- Burial location
- West Sussex, England, UK
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
📚MARCH 2026 The Eagle of the Ninth An Introduction in GoodThings I've Read (March 11)
The Eagle of the Ninth in Folio Society Devotees (April 2023)
British Author Challenge January 2023: Rosemary Sutcliff and Fred D'Aguiar in 75 Books Challenge for 2023 (February 2023)
Rosemary Sutcliff in Roman and Dark Ages Britain (November 2018)
Book Discussion: Arthurian Themed Read *Spoiler Free* in The Green Dragon (March 2008)
Reviews
Rosemary Sutcliff's Warrior Scarlet was one of my earlist forays into historical fiction, and I bless the chance that made it one of the few Sutcliffs our small-town library possessed. I reread it frequently in my formative years, and it has firmly established both my love for and standard of historical fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed this most recent reread, a good ten or more years since I had last picked it up. Some childhood favorites lose their charm when we revisit them as adults, but show more the best children's literature never does.
It's Britain in the Bronze Age, nine hundred years before the birth of Christ. Drem lives with his mother, grandfather, and brother in a small settlement. He is crippled; one of his arms hangs useless by his side. But at nine years old, he doesn't realize the far-reaching effect this might have on his future with the tribe. He dreams of slaying his wolf and taking up his Warrior Scarlet, that bright color that only a fighting man may wear. But there are three years of intense training for that, and a boy's future place in the tribe hangs so lightly on the end of his spear.
Sutcliff's characters are, as usual, perfectly rendered. They aren't cuddly, warm, comforting people with modern sensibilities. Not at all; they're actually real. Often they are harsh; Drem's older brother beats him when he causes trouble, and his grandfather is a proud, selfish old man. His mother is loving, but when she is worried, "her hand is hard." Something in me has always responded to this honesty: the characters in this story lived for me, when hundreds of carefully engineered, all-wise parent figures in other children's books have been completely forgotten.
Sutcliff never falls into the trap of transplanting modern ideas into her historical settings. It's plain right from the outset that this is a very patriarchal society. Every hearth has a Men's Side and a Women's Side, and there is never any blurring. No women would ever even think of being a warrior. Scarlet is a color only men may wear, though the women are the ones to weave it for them. And yet this, as part of the story, never put me off. That is how it was... and the admirable characters show kindness to one another within those cultural confines. Not all men back then were stupid chauvinists just because they did not open the Men's Side to the women and do other things utterly unthinkable in their society. It never even occurred to their minds — and there are still traits to admire in them. Talore the Hunter, my favorite character, is a great example of this.
And yet with all this historical and ideological accuracy, Sutcliff doesn't just dismiss her female characters. Blai's subplot is heartbreaking, exquisitely drawn. Sutcliff handles the romantic plotline carefully. It's not the focus at all, and when it does come to fruition it feels so right for the period. No gushy, Valentine-y, modern ideas of falling in love, but something poignantly written that is nevertheless extremely strong underneath. Drem matures from a thoughtless, selfish boy to a man not when he wins his Warrior Scarlet, but when he learns to see Blai as a person with feelings and thoughts of her own. That's just hugely romantic to me, in a Bronze Age kind of way!
Another thing that rings true is the bittersweet ending of Drem's relationship with the Half People. Luga is right: not even Drem One-arm can live in two worlds at once. And Doli the shepherd dies; there is no miraculous, convenient prolonging of his life due to Drem's valor. Why did I know, even as a child, that this was realistic? That life is hard, that people we care about do die, that relationships end? The way that Sutcliff brings Drem's story to a close is satisfying in a way that an artificially contrived ending could never be.
I should also say a word about Charles Keeping's wonderful illustrations. Don't look at the cover art done more recently by Moline Kramer; it's hideous. Keeping's original cover and intricate ink drawings inside capture the essence of the story perfectly. There is something very elemental about his style, and yet it captures little personal expressions, hints around the mouth or eyes, something in the sag of the shoulders. Beautiful and emotional.
No doubt this glowing review is biased somewhat because this is a book that impressed its mold deeply on me as a child. I have that deep, almost primitive attachment to it because of the ways it shaped me. But it isn't just that. I'm an older reader now, wiser in experience and much wider read, and I still can't find a flaw in this story. The history is impeccable; the characters are complex and believable and human; the writing is spare and elegant with the elegance of bones — a graceful structure under the beauty. I can't recommend Sutcliff enough, and Warrior Scarlet is one of her best. Highly recommended! show less
It's Britain in the Bronze Age, nine hundred years before the birth of Christ. Drem lives with his mother, grandfather, and brother in a small settlement. He is crippled; one of his arms hangs useless by his side. But at nine years old, he doesn't realize the far-reaching effect this might have on his future with the tribe. He dreams of slaying his wolf and taking up his Warrior Scarlet, that bright color that only a fighting man may wear. But there are three years of intense training for that, and a boy's future place in the tribe hangs so lightly on the end of his spear.
Sutcliff's characters are, as usual, perfectly rendered. They aren't cuddly, warm, comforting people with modern sensibilities. Not at all; they're actually real. Often they are harsh; Drem's older brother beats him when he causes trouble, and his grandfather is a proud, selfish old man. His mother is loving, but when she is worried, "her hand is hard." Something in me has always responded to this honesty: the characters in this story lived for me, when hundreds of carefully engineered, all-wise parent figures in other children's books have been completely forgotten.
Sutcliff never falls into the trap of transplanting modern ideas into her historical settings. It's plain right from the outset that this is a very patriarchal society. Every hearth has a Men's Side and a Women's Side, and there is never any blurring. No women would ever even think of being a warrior. Scarlet is a color only men may wear, though the women are the ones to weave it for them. And yet this, as part of the story, never put me off. That is how it was... and the admirable characters show kindness to one another within those cultural confines. Not all men back then were stupid chauvinists just because they did not open the Men's Side to the women and do other things utterly unthinkable in their society. It never even occurred to their minds — and there are still traits to admire in them. Talore the Hunter, my favorite character, is a great example of this.
And yet with all this historical and ideological accuracy, Sutcliff doesn't just dismiss her female characters. Blai's subplot is heartbreaking, exquisitely drawn. Sutcliff handles the romantic plotline carefully. It's not the focus at all, and when it does come to fruition it feels so right for the period. No gushy, Valentine-y, modern ideas of falling in love, but something poignantly written that is nevertheless extremely strong underneath. Drem matures from a thoughtless, selfish boy to a man not when he wins his Warrior Scarlet, but when he learns to see Blai as a person with feelings and thoughts of her own. That's just hugely romantic to me, in a Bronze Age kind of way!
Another thing that rings true is the bittersweet ending of Drem's relationship with the Half People. Luga is right: not even Drem One-arm can live in two worlds at once. And Doli the shepherd dies; there is no miraculous, convenient prolonging of his life due to Drem's valor. Why did I know, even as a child, that this was realistic? That life is hard, that people we care about do die, that relationships end? The way that Sutcliff brings Drem's story to a close is satisfying in a way that an artificially contrived ending could never be.
I should also say a word about Charles Keeping's wonderful illustrations. Don't look at the cover art done more recently by Moline Kramer; it's hideous. Keeping's original cover and intricate ink drawings inside capture the essence of the story perfectly. There is something very elemental about his style, and yet it captures little personal expressions, hints around the mouth or eyes, something in the sag of the shoulders. Beautiful and emotional.
No doubt this glowing review is biased somewhat because this is a book that impressed its mold deeply on me as a child. I have that deep, almost primitive attachment to it because of the ways it shaped me. But it isn't just that. I'm an older reader now, wiser in experience and much wider read, and I still can't find a flaw in this story. The history is impeccable; the characters are complex and believable and human; the writing is spare and elegant with the elegance of bones — a graceful structure under the beauty. I can't recommend Sutcliff enough, and Warrior Scarlet is one of her best. Highly recommended! show less
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/blue-remembered-hills-by-rosemary-sutcliff/
As a child and teenager, I enjoyed a lot of Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels – I particularly remember the Eagle of the Ninth trilogy, The Hound of Ulster, and Warrior Scarlet. I picked up this autobiography a while back without really looking at it, and plucked it off the shelves at random the other day, interested to get to know more about a much-loved writer. (She lived from 1920 to 1993.)
My first show more surprise, once I actually looked at the front cover, was to see that it has an introduction by Tom Shakespeare. I knew Tom vaguely when we were students at Cambridge, and he once managed to get a front page photograph in the Guardian by eating fire on King’s Parade in protest at the government’s student loans proposals. We’ve exchanged the odd note over the last few years. He has achondroplasia, the most visible symptom of which is dwarfism, and is one of the world’s leading experts on the politics of disability.
Why, I wondered, would he write a foreword to Rosemary Sutcliff’s autobiography? I supposed that he might have shared my youthful enthusiasm for her writing, possibly even more so (he started Cambridge with the Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic course, before switching to Social and Political Sciences). My copy of the book, which features a head-and-neck photograph of Sutcliff, failed to give me the vital clue that the two earlier editions would have done as soon as I looked at them.
Rosemary Sutcliff had Still’s Disease, systemic-onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and suffered various medical treatments and operations which were deemed necessary by the doctors advising her parents. (Tom Shakespeare points out that “orthopaedics” literally means “putting children right”.) She spent long periods in hospitals, isolated from her family and her few friends. (She was an only child; a sister had died before she was born.) As an adult, she used a wheelchair (after the death of her mother, who refused to allow her to have one). Writing cannot have been comfortable for her; but at her peak, she wrote 1800 words a day, by hand.
Once you know all this, a lot about her writing makes more sense. Tom Shakespeare lists nineteen of her novels where a major character has either a congenital or an acquired physical disability, and comments, “I cannot think of another writer who has done more or better.” And her disabled characters are not defined by their disabilities. They are simply people getting along as best they can in challenging circumstances. And it makes sense to choose Tom Shakespeare as the writer of the introduction to the book.
Sutcliff’s father was in the Navy, her mother was difficult (possibly bipolar) and her childhood was one of bouncing around between different ports, including Sheerness, Chatham and more exotically Malta. She was very slow to learn to read and write, left school at fourteen and worked as an artist until she rather suddenly became a full-time writer at the age of twenty-nine.
Having said all of that, it’s not a sad book. We live the life we get to live, and Sutcliffe makes the most of it, with occasional shafts of real humour. “I have always been sorry for children born more than two hundred years ago, and therefore denied the pleasure of popping fuchsia buds.” (This got some extraordinary responses when I posted it to Facebook.) She has a great eye for the countryside, and depicts friends and pets with love and candour. It’s a portrait of a particular time from a particular viewpoint, but it’s very nicely done.
In the last couple of chapters, she tells of her romantic relationship with Rupert King, a year younger than her but already separated from his first wife and the father of two sons. Eventually he decided to marry someone else, and she decided that she could not bear to be the third person in that relationship. It’s an intense and ultimately unhappy story, but she clearly feels that this thwarted romance was good for her in the end. I did a bit of my own delving on Rupert, using the online genealogy resources; he was married four times in all, with three more children on top of the two from his first marriage, and ended up in Australia. I don’t think he’d have made Rosemary happy in the medium to long term.
Anyway, brief, punchy, evocative, well worth it. show less
As a child and teenager, I enjoyed a lot of Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels – I particularly remember the Eagle of the Ninth trilogy, The Hound of Ulster, and Warrior Scarlet. I picked up this autobiography a while back without really looking at it, and plucked it off the shelves at random the other day, interested to get to know more about a much-loved writer. (She lived from 1920 to 1993.)
My first show more surprise, once I actually looked at the front cover, was to see that it has an introduction by Tom Shakespeare. I knew Tom vaguely when we were students at Cambridge, and he once managed to get a front page photograph in the Guardian by eating fire on King’s Parade in protest at the government’s student loans proposals. We’ve exchanged the odd note over the last few years. He has achondroplasia, the most visible symptom of which is dwarfism, and is one of the world’s leading experts on the politics of disability.
Why, I wondered, would he write a foreword to Rosemary Sutcliff’s autobiography? I supposed that he might have shared my youthful enthusiasm for her writing, possibly even more so (he started Cambridge with the Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic course, before switching to Social and Political Sciences). My copy of the book, which features a head-and-neck photograph of Sutcliff, failed to give me the vital clue that the two earlier editions would have done as soon as I looked at them.
Rosemary Sutcliff had Still’s Disease, systemic-onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and suffered various medical treatments and operations which were deemed necessary by the doctors advising her parents. (Tom Shakespeare points out that “orthopaedics” literally means “putting children right”.) She spent long periods in hospitals, isolated from her family and her few friends. (She was an only child; a sister had died before she was born.) As an adult, she used a wheelchair (after the death of her mother, who refused to allow her to have one). Writing cannot have been comfortable for her; but at her peak, she wrote 1800 words a day, by hand.
Once you know all this, a lot about her writing makes more sense. Tom Shakespeare lists nineteen of her novels where a major character has either a congenital or an acquired physical disability, and comments, “I cannot think of another writer who has done more or better.” And her disabled characters are not defined by their disabilities. They are simply people getting along as best they can in challenging circumstances. And it makes sense to choose Tom Shakespeare as the writer of the introduction to the book.
Sutcliff’s father was in the Navy, her mother was difficult (possibly bipolar) and her childhood was one of bouncing around between different ports, including Sheerness, Chatham and more exotically Malta. She was very slow to learn to read and write, left school at fourteen and worked as an artist until she rather suddenly became a full-time writer at the age of twenty-nine.
Having said all of that, it’s not a sad book. We live the life we get to live, and Sutcliffe makes the most of it, with occasional shafts of real humour. “I have always been sorry for children born more than two hundred years ago, and therefore denied the pleasure of popping fuchsia buds.” (This got some extraordinary responses when I posted it to Facebook.) She has a great eye for the countryside, and depicts friends and pets with love and candour. It’s a portrait of a particular time from a particular viewpoint, but it’s very nicely done.
In the last couple of chapters, she tells of her romantic relationship with Rupert King, a year younger than her but already separated from his first wife and the father of two sons. Eventually he decided to marry someone else, and she decided that she could not bear to be the third person in that relationship. It’s an intense and ultimately unhappy story, but she clearly feels that this thwarted romance was good for her in the end. I did a bit of my own delving on Rupert, using the online genealogy resources; he was married four times in all, with three more children on top of the two from his first marriage, and ended up in Australia. I don’t think he’d have made Rosemary happy in the medium to long term.
Anyway, brief, punchy, evocative, well worth it. show less
Roman centurion Marcus Flavius Aquila has his first command, and, at his request, it’s in Roman Britain. Marcus’s father was part of the lost Ninth Legion, which disappeared after marching north beyond Hadrian’s wall. Not long after Marcus takes command, his men must defend the fort against a British uprising. Marcus’s uncle has retired in Britain, and Marcus goes there to heal from the battle wound that has left him lame for life. Just as Marcus begins to contemplate his future, he show more gets the opportunity to head into the north country to see if he can find out what happened to the lost legion and recover their eagle.
This story seems like capture the flag on steroids. Finding the missing eagle is only half the battle. If Marcus is successful in locating it, he’ll still need to get it back to the safety of Roman occupied territory. The desperate flight south through Scotland had me thinking of Richard Hannay’s flight across the same landscape almost two millennia later. It’s an exhilarating read! show less
This story seems like capture the flag on steroids. Finding the missing eagle is only half the battle. If Marcus is successful in locating it, he’ll still need to get it back to the safety of Roman occupied territory. The desperate flight south through Scotland had me thinking of Richard Hannay’s flight across the same landscape almost two millennia later. It’s an exhilarating read! show less
A succinct, elegant and rather beautifully written (and, here, rather beautifully spoken) version of The Iliad, wherein all of human folly seems bound up in a rather gruesome purpose, with the gods either literally interfering, or the embodiment of happenstance and foolishness and wayward passions, or both, since this is poetry and myth. Though fascinated by Greek mythology, I never precisely *liked* the story of Troy as a kid, it was too morally dubious, its so-called Heroes rarely heroic. show more Now I realise that was the point, and find myself appreciating it for the masterpiece it is, historically mythologising people of great stature who nonetheless did things because they wanted to and not because they were heroic as we understand it. Its encompassing of human nature is a work of extraordinary intelligence and empathy, and while it might have soothed and stroked the egos and memorials of those it praised, for the rest of us it's a dark, if thrilling, fable of death and destruction. Sutcliff, as may be expected, presents a straighforward children's version with subtlety, intelligence and sympathy. show less
Lists
Books Read in 2015 (12)
Favourite Books (1)
Precious People (1)
Elevenses (1)
Comfort Reads (1)
Ambleside Year 7 (1)
el (1)
The Trojan War (1)
Ambleside Books (1)
Folio Society (3)
THE WAR ROOM (4)
Roman Britain (3)
Monastic life (1)
Female Author (1)
Books with Twins (1)
Which house? (1)
Best Young Adult (2)
Sonlight Books (2)
Five star books (2)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 84
- Also by
- 14
- Members
- 22,330
- Popularity
- #951
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 346
- ISBNs
- 701
- Languages
- 23
- Favorited
- 82
