Bulletin Board

Just now finished your book Last Kingdom. Totally enjoyed the reading and the history. My husband and I last year visited the places mentioned in you book following their history before the Vikings (Danes ) destroyed the army churches and cathedrals. We started in Iona and came down. Whitby and lindisfarn   When reading your historical notes I smiled and was so pleased that your family comes from Bamburgh. I loved that place and the area so beautiful.  My ancestors come from that area and up north to Scotland. No one famous or brave but being there brought me a sense that I could have been happy there, so hopefully my ancestors were contented there too.  Again thank you for writing Last Kingdom. I am so glad to have read it and I am already searching on my nook for the next one.
Sincerely,
Kim Hartwick

Dear mr cornwell,

I'm a 21 year old living and working in Horsham (Sussex, England). I couldn't help myself I just had to write to you. I've been reading your books for a few years now and passed them on and shared the exciting adventures of sharpe and uhtred with my friend and colleagues. It pleases me to say they we have had many debates and conversations about the characters plots and places mentioned in these stories. I have read all of the sharpe books many times and for the characters and plots in the book, sharpes trafalgar remains my favourite of them. I love history and your books give me an insight into the history of my country. Not only that but it inspires my to research and discover more about the time in history that you write about (my school never taught me about the napoleaonic wars or the Viking era). Really I just want to say that I have just finished reading lords of the north for probably the fourth time and I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time I read it. I can't wait
for the next enthralling chapter in the life of uhtred.

Sorry for writing this, it probably took you away from important work or just annoyed you.

Thank you for all your hard work and effort.
Dean Wheeler

Cue the trumpets.  Unfurl the banners.  There is a royal cardinal of historical fiction among us.  Me?  I’d kiss his ring and vote him pope.

Bernard Cornwell is the living cultural treasure of which I speak.  Here’s a Englishman, an ex-TV producer who followed his heart to Cape Cod and couldn’t get a green card.  So he wrote the Richard Sharp series (21 novels) about a rifleman who follows Wellington from India to the Battle of Waterloo.  See the DVD if you don’t believe me.  Never has history tasted more true.

There is no era of blood and guts that Cornwell has not gored and scored.  He’s written 40 novels and is considered “the most prolific and successful novelist in the world today” (Wall Street Journal).   The King Arthur legend, the Saxon invasion of England, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the 1350’s War of the Roses, he’s marched his sparse prose through every one.

1356, his newest, tells how yeoman English archers, with pluck and luck and sharp stiletto daggers, pop the eyes out of the cream of France and make a rabbit stew.  He tells the birth tales of the professional soldier through the mists of time.  His heroes struggle out of the gutter to gain the manner house.  I await his serialized interpretation every spring and my library orders them by the bucket.

History is recorded by the winners, and Cornwell annotates the sights and sounds, the pompous and villainous, the abbots with nasty habits, slayers with haymakers and monster men who swing a morning star.  He tells history far beyond the ‘Be All You Can Be’ recruiting poster.  He puts you in the melee and mud like no other.

War is hell and Cornwell writes in Technicolor.  Swords were useless for fighting in the battle line, so smash an ax to split a steel helmet, swing a cudgel to clear a lane through the cannon fodder. The only difference between Cornwell’s heroes and the hounds of hell is that they do not condone rape.  Mayhem and chivalry, surely, but a lady’s virtue is a gate best not trampled on Cornwell’s turf.

Richard Sharpe, Uhtred, Thomas of Hookton, Nathaniel Starbuck – these men have the spine of a nation, the genes of the Celts, the grip of the god-damns (French slang for the English).  If ever a warrior looked into a mirror, it was to find a bit of Richard Sharpe glinting back in his eye.  There will be no boogey men inside the castle tonight, my darlings.

So raise your pens to Bernard Cornwell, a master of the craft and pinpoint accurate with  a yew-bow at two hundred yards. If it weren’t for his lineage, we’d all be eating pommes friets and goose liver pate with never a gold Louie between us.  And the cries of our mothers would keep us awake at night as we pined for a blade.

Huzzah Lord Cornwell, the castle and keep of historical fiction are yours, well won.

Peter Prasad

Mr Cornwell,

My name is Richard, and I'm sure you get lots of these but I wanted to say reading your books has been, and continues to be, a real pleasure. For that special group of us that are so enthralled by historical fiction, both by its entertainment as well as educational benefits, your books provide an escape from the crap of daily life, to put it sharply.

Whenever I go to sea (I'm in the US Navy), I would always have a stack of books, including many of yours, and the combination of talent, research, and passion that are your books have turned some of my non-reading co-workers into bookworms. I confess I've even bought your books for other people, knowing they would love them.

You've got a real talent, sir. I can honestly say that one of my most sought after environments, amidst the hectic day to day life in the military, is a quiet couple of hours with a coffee and a Sharpe/Saxon novel. With that being said, thank you for the hours of escape you've provided, and I selfishly hope you continue writing. Cheers!

Richard Hoffmann
US Navy Search and Rescue

Dear Bernard,
I am reading at this moment your novels about king Alfred. I am (among others) a historian and I like your reconstruction very much! So convincing.
One time I kept on reading till 05.00 in the morning. So much was I taken in by the story. Thank you,

René from Leiden, Holland.

Oh Yes ! I can't wait (for The Pagan Lord)!

Arthur

Dear Mr. Cornwell,
I just want to say thank you for the wonderful books you write. I have read quite of lot of them (The Winter king trilogy, the Saxon series, the Grail quest series, Azincourt, Gallows thief, Stonehenge) and I love all of them!
I am a history teacher and I must admit sometimes I even use parts of the information I read in your books in my lessons, for example about the battle of Azincourt and the role the English archers played in that battle)

Last week I read 1356, and you did it again, you managed to completely suck me into the 14th century, not letting me go until the story was finished. I absolutely loved it.
So thank you for writing the books you write, and I hope there many more will follow.

Kindest regards, Bettina Grissen
from the Netherlands

I have just finished reading Sharpe's Company and would just like to say it is one of the best books I have ever read.
Thank you
Matt

Just saw a story stating that, in May, the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs approved the Mjölnir, the Hammer of Thor, as an emblem for headstones and markers.... "Wyrd bið ful aræd"

Dalton in South Carolina

Mr Cornwell,

over the last years I have been soaking up your novels and wanted to thanks you for writing stories that have me totally engaged. I cannot wait to get my hands on 1356 and The Pagan Lord. I have been recommending your novels to friends, coworkers, family. Thank you, sir.
Regards,

Katja Hundt