Rosemary Sutcliff

Rosemary Sutcliff was a highly acclaimed British novelist, best known for her historical fiction. She was born in West Clandon, Surrey in 1920 and spent her early years in Malta and other naval bases due to her father's occupation as a naval officer. Sutcliff was confined to a wheelchair for most of her life due to her contracting Still's Disease at a young age. This chronic sickness resulted in her spending a significant amount of time with her mother, who was a tireless storyteller and from whom Sutcliff learned many of the Celtic and Saxon legends that she would later expand upon in her works of historical fiction.

Sutcliff's early schooling was continually interrupted by moving house and her disabling condition, and she didn't learn to read until she was nine. She left school at fourteen to attend Bideford Art School, where she studied for three years and graduated from the General Art Course. She then worked as a painter of miniatures. Sutcliff's career as a writer began in 1950 with the publication of "The Chronicles of Robin Hood," and she found her voice when she wrote "The Eagle of the Ninth" in 1954. She won the Carnegie Medal for "The Lantern Bearers" in 1959 and was runner-up in 1972 for "Tristan and Iseult." She was highly commended for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1974 and won the first Phoenix Award in 1985 for "The Mark of the Horse Lord."

Sutcliff was appointed OBE for services to Children's Literature in 1975 and promoted to CBE in 1992. She spent many years living in Walberton near Arundel, Sussex. She was an incessant writer throughout her life and was still writing on the morning of her death. She never married.

Sutcliff's novels received much critical acclaim in her lifetime and since. The best-known of her Roman novels is "The Eagle of the Ninth," and the related trilogy, of which the second, "The Lantern Bearers," was awarded the 1959 Carnegie Medal. Her retelling of the legend of "Tristan and Iseult" was highly recommended for the same award in 1972. Sutcliff was born in Surrey, the daughter of a naval officer and later in her life lived in Devon and then Sussex. At the age of two, she contracted the progressively wasting Still's disease, and hence spent most of her life in a wheelchair. Sadly, Sutcliff died in 1992 at the age of 72.