Rosemary Sutcliff

Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-92) was a British author who produced classic children's and young adult literature, and historical fiction. She wrote over sixty children's books, historical novels, stories, radio and TV scripts. In time they range from Ancient Greece, through Roman times in Britain, to the Dark and Middle Ages, Elizabethan and Tudor times, the English Civil War and the early 1800s in Medina.

When very young, her father, an officer in the Royal Navy, was transferred to Malta. She moved frequently, living in Streatham, London, Chatham Dockyard, Sheerness Dockyard and North Devon. Severely disabled by Stills Disease was educated at home.

She only learned to read when she was aged nine. In 1934 she enrolled at Bideford Art School in Devon (England). She was there for three years, passing the 'City and Guilds' General Art Course. She was first a painter of miniatures, but in 1946 she began to write, retelling the legends that her mother had told her as a young child.

in 1950 Oxford University press they gave her her first commission – for a children's version of the Robin Hood legends. It took eighteen months for the manuscript to be returned to her, during which time she wrote The Queen Elizabeth Story and sent it on to OUP as well. It was accepted, and the two books were eventually published in the same year, 1950.

Her mother died during the 1950s, and Rosemary and her father moved to Sussex. Her father died in the early 1980s.

With over 50 books to her credit, including her autobiography Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff is now universally considered one of the finest writers of historical novels for children, young adults and as she put it, all children aged 8 to 88. Her books translated into over 25 languages.

In 1959 she won the Carnegie Medal for The Lantern Bearers. Her version of the story of King Arthur - Sword at Sunset - which was written for adults was top of the bestseller list in the UK. In 1978 Song for a Dark Queen won The Other Award for non-sexist women's fiction.

In 1975, the Queen appointed her OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for services to children's literature. In 1992 – the year she died – she was promoted to a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 1982, and was for a period a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters.