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Rosemary Sutcliff was born in a blizzard on 14 December 1920. She wrote many children's books, especially historical fiction and retellings of myths and legends. However she didn't start writing until the age of 30, barely went to school and only learnt to read properly at the age of nine! Rosemary's childhood was highly unusual, she contracted an illness early on in her childhood which left her wheelchair bound and disrupted her schooling. Her father was a naval officer so Rosemary's childhood was very nomadic, moving frequently from port to port. She was mostly home schooled and developed a love of myth and legend from her mother who was a wonderful storyteller. She left school at 14 to study miniature painting at Bideford Art School and was 18 when the Second World War broke out. It was during the war that Rosemary first felt the 'itch' to write, but her first published novel The Chronicles of Robin Hood was only published in 1950. Although her career as a writer started relatively late in her life, she went on to achieve widespread fame and a large and devoted readership, writing over 50 books and changing the way history was written for children. She was awarded an OBE for services to children's literature in 1975 and a CBE in 1992. She continued to write all her life - she was even writing on the morning of her death in 1992. Rosemary Sutcliff was a keen believer that books should not patronise children or over-simplify the story. She once commented that she wrote 'for children of all ages from eight to eighty-eight.'
Whether Sutcliff is calling up the ale houses of Dublin or the battle-torn moors of Scotland, her descriptive language and dialogue transport readers back to a time and place not usually visited in young people's fiction * Booklist * The late Sutcliffe's take on the legend will appeal to both children and adults . . . This is great swashbuckling stuff, full of adventure and romance but with a darker edge than one would expect * South Wales Argus * Sutcliff [is] a wonderful writer of historical novels * Birmingham Post * Told in magnificent, rolling prose * The Times *
