Bernard Cornwell

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Bernard Cornwell OBE (born February 23, 1944) is a prolific and popular English historical novelist.

He was born in London in 1944. His father was a Canadian airman; his mother English, a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. He was given up for adoption and brought up in Essex by the Wiggins family, who were part of the Peculiar People, a strict Protestant sect who banned frivolity of all kinds and even medicine. He was sent away to Monkton Combe School, attended the University of London and after graduating worked for BBC Television as a director. He married Judy in 1980 and re-located to her home country, the USA. Unable to get a Green Card, he started writing novels, as this did not require a work permit.

In June 2006, he was awarded an OBE (Officer, Order of the British Empire) in the Queen's 80th Birthday Honours List. [1]

Contents

[edit] Series

[edit] The SHARPE series (in historical date order)

His best-known books feature the adventures of Richard Sharpe, an English soldier, and are set in the Napoleonic era. After writing 12 books detailing adventures set around various European battle campaigns over the course of 12 years, further stories covered Sharpe's earlier years as a young soldier in India. Most of the Napoleonic-era books were filmed for a television series starring Sean Bean as Sharpe. Cornwell reportedly was unimpressed by Bean's casting, but was won over by his performances to the point of dedicating a subsequent Sharpe novel to him. Further books written subsequently have been slotted in to different parts of Sharpe's timeframe.

Some Sharpe books have been adapted to become TV movies, but the adaptations are often only loosely based on the book it is named for.

Main article: Sharpe (TV series)

[edit] The Starbuck Chronicles

This tetralogy is set during the American Civil War

  1. "Rebel" (1993) - The Battle of Bull Run
  2. "Copperhead" (1993) -
  3. "Battle Flag" (1995)-The Second Battle of Bull Run
  4. "The Bloody Ground" (1996) - The Battle of Antietam

[edit] The Warlord Chronicles

This trilogy deals with Arthurian Britain. Like other "historical" takes on the Arthurian legends, the series postulates that Post-Roman Britain was a difficult time for the native Britons, being threatened by invasion from the Anglo-Saxons in the East and raids from the Irish in the West. At the same time, they suffered internal power struggles between their petty kingdoms and friction between the old Druidic religion and newly-arrived Christianity.

  1. "The Winter King" (1995)
  2. "Enemy of God" (1996)
  3. "Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur" (1997)

[edit] The Grail Quest novels

This trilogy deals with a 14th Century search for the Holy Grail, around the time of the Hundred Years' War.

  1. "Harlequin" (re-named The Archer's Tale in the USA) (2000) — Battle of Crécy
  2. "Vagabond" (2002) — Battle of Neville's Cross, Battle of La Roche-Derrien
  3. "Heretic" (2003) — Siege of Calais

[edit] The Saxon Stories

His latest series – The Saxon Stories – is set in 9th century Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great, dealing with his defence of his kingdom against the Danes (Vikings), becoming as a result the only English monarch to be awarded the epithet "the Great" by his people. According to Cornwell replies on his bulletin board, the series will have 3 or 4 more sequels: "I'm not sure how many there will be - perhaps seven? maybe eight?" [2]

  1. "The Last Kingdom" (2004)
  2. "The Pale Horseman" (2005)
  3. "The Lords of the North" (2006)
  4. Untitled (2007)

[edit] Crowning Mercy

  1. "A Crowning Mercy" (1983)
  2. "Fallen Angels" (1984)
  3. "Coat of Arms" (The Aristocrats)(1986)

Co-written with Judy Cornwell under the pseudonym Susannah Kells

[edit] The Thrillers

  • "Wildtrack"
  • "Sea Lord" (aka "Killer's Wake")
  • "Crackdown"
  • "Stormchild"
  • "Scoundrel"

*These books, all contemporary thrillers, are unrelated between themselves, but they all have sailing as a background and common theme.

[edit] Other novels

  • "Redcoat" - Set in Philadelphia during the British occupation of 1777
  • "Stonehenge: A Novel of 2000 BC"
  • "Gallows Thief"

[edit] See also

Sharpe (TV Series)

[edit] External links

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