the shining company by rosemary sutcliff

But as Sutcliff herself acknowledged, she also had ‘a feeling for the mending side of life’ and whether writing of the physically and emotionally crippled, or, when following in the footsteps of her beloved Kipling, of the healing which happens when clashing cultures learn to live together, her prose was always characterised by compassion. These traits were most apparent perhaps in her adult novel Sword at Sunset, the ‘autobiography’ of King Arthur, and the work of which she was most proud. The published text arrived a matter of days before her death and on rereading the transcript I was reminded of her vitality and enthusiasm, of an honest approach which combined scholarship with an unsentimental attitude to pain and suffering.Īs Julia Eccleshare observed of her writing (of the obituary), allusions to historical sources are present but never signposted, the battle narrative magnificent yet never glorifying the strife it depicts. Last year I interviewed Rosemary Sutcliff on the Arthurian theme in her fiction. The Independent (London) -August 20, 1992-published some comments on their obituary of Rosemary Sutcliff, which noted that she had “a feeling for the mending side of life”. The story, however, is seen from the point of view of the shield-bearers, not the lords eulogised in The Goddodin, and treats themes of loyalty, courage and indeed political fantasy.”

Northern Britain in the sixth century AD is the setting of The Shining Company (1990), a retelling of The Goddodin (v. Sutcliff returned to the Romano-British frontier in The Mark of the Horse Lord (1965) and Frontier Wolf (1980). The book has been televised, and its sequels are The Silver Branch (1957) and The Lantern Bearers(1959), which won the Carnegie medal. A good part of the book is set in the North East around Hadrian’s Wall (a powerful symbol) and a map is provided. It is a quest story involving a journey north to the land of the Picts to recover the lost standard of the Roman Ninth Legion. The Eagle of the Ninth (1954) is perhaps her finest work and exemplifies the psychological dilemmas that Rosemary Sutcliff brought to her novels. The Capricorn Bracelet comprises six linked short stories spanning the years AD 61 to AD 383, and Hadrian’s Wall features in the narrative. She sets several of her best-known works in Roman and Dark Age Britain, giving her the opportunity to write about divided loyalties, a recurring theme. “One of the most distinguished children’s writers of our times, Rosemary Sutcliff wrote over thirty books, some of them now considered classics. It seems now to have disappeared from the web.

One Alan Myers once compiled an ‘A to Z of the many writers of the past who had a significant connection’ with the North-East of England.

The shining company by rosemary sutcliff