Bulletin Board

Hi Bernard

Just a quick line to thank you for the brave step you took in moving to America and taking the decision to write your first book. I am an avid reader generally but I'm captivated by Uhtred! I am due to visit Bebbanburg later this year. Currently on book 10, The Flame Bearer, and dreading finishing my last book.  It will feel as though I have lost a friend! Thank you for the hours of pleasure these books give and I'm only sorry I won't get to meet you in person as I live in the UK. Maybe we will see a sequel to Uhtred? I will keep everything crossed.

Very best wishes,

Teresa

 

Greetings, I just wanted to tell you that you are the reason I got into reading since high-school. The last kingdom is and will forever be my top 5 book series. I just couldn't stop reading it. I would think about Uhtred of Bamburgh and his adventures all day and night until I can continue reading it. I hope this message finds you well and you have a great day much love.

Robert Pardue

 

Greetings from Vancouver, Canada!  I just finished reading your “Warlord Chronicles” trilogy (The Winter King, Enemy of God, Excalibur) and it was one of the very few times an author has drawn me so deeply into a story that I didn’t want it to end.  In fact I felt as if I had to bid a sad good-bye to a group of friends (and fiends) I’ll never see again.  I loved the way you de-romanticized the myths surrounding Arthur with realistically flawed characters and rather odious accounts of everyday life in 5th century Britain, yet at the same time delivered a 1,500 page saga filled with heroes and despots, love and war, and just the right touch of magic to place your tome comfortably between historical fiction and earthbound fantasy.  I’m still replaying those final moments of “Excalibur” in my head.  You have a remarkable gift for teleporting readers to a different time and place with descriptive language that appeals to all five senses, thank-you for sharing that gift with the rest of us.  And just to let you know, I was so impressed with this introduction to your work that I went out and bought “Stonehenge” as well as the entire “Last Kingdom” series.

Robert Caspick

Dear Mr. Cornwall,

I have been reading your books, the Sharpe novels, in publication order. I have enjoyed them, but they were only entertaining in my opinion. I finished Sharpe’s Enemy this evening, about fifteen minutes ago. I cried my eyes out. Thank you for such a beautifully written book. I couldn’t put it down. I have Sharpe’s Honor on my bedside table. I might wait a few days, because I think I still need to process Sharpe’s Enemy. But I will be reading it as soon as I can.

Yours Sincerely,

Clarke Mitchell

 

Dear Bernard Cornwell,

I absolutely love and admire that you met your birth father in Canada, found your ancestors, realized (through much thought, pondering, and heart leaps, I would think) actual history, and took the time to share with us that history. I'm actually elated, given I can just imagine your literal story, as I was adopted, also. I found my birth father, too, and the quest for the ancestral stories do not end! I would love to see a movie of your quest!!! You know, those moments when the lightbulb has turned on and your eyes light up!

Thank you for sharing the treasure you found in your ancestry!

Elizabeth Carroll

Bernard,

 

I’ve wanted to write you for years but unfortunately have not had the time to put pen to paper until recently. First off I want to let you know that you are a fantastic writer, and your work has provided me with countless hours of enjoyment.  You have a way of writing which as a reader totally captivates, and the way your articulate makes me imagine the scenarios you describe as if I’m there in that moment.  In the early days of my professional career as a military officer, I traveled around the world- Africa, Japan, Indonesia, Qatar, and Afghanistan.  Your books accompanied me everywhere I went, and in some cases provided my with a needed escape from the current reality I was living in.

 

I don’t want to bore you, but to be brief, I actually learned of your books as a child but through a less than conventional means… my father was always interested in British tv shows and movies and I remembered a tv show with Sean Bean about the Napoleonic era which I could never put a finger on what it was called… after some time and searching later on it turned out to be “Sharpe’s Rifles.”  I bought my first book in the series while deployed in Africa on a year assignment, and immediately feel in love with the story.

 

I think it’s incredible how you translate actual military history with a storyline which brings it all together so beautifully.  I’ve read many (if not all) of your works, and think I am completely up to speed! Just finishing up Sharpe’s Command!

 

I truly appreciate your work, and I believe you have written some of the best historical fiction books out there. I sincerely hope you continue to write, and that Sharpe’s Command is not the last of the series!!

 

Respectfully,

 

Jack Schenker

Dear Mr Cornwell,

 

I've been a fan of your novels for several years. Recently my brother gave me a copy of Waterloo. It was so good! The maps & your descriptions made an incredibly complex battle understandable. I'd love to read more non-fiction from you if you ever felt so inclined. Perhaps a companion book about Trafalgar? My personal hero is Lord Nelson (I went to Burnham Thorpe in 2022 to visit his home town). I think you could do a great biography of him. I read the one by Southey but it is a little old fasioned (I think it was published in 1813) and it didn't have any maps, which made the battles difficult to conceptualize. Anyway, thank you for keeping British history alive! It is so interesting and you do a marvelous job telling the story.

 

-Scott

I just wanted to let you know that as much as I have enjoyed all of your books, your last two Sharpe titles were especially meaningful.

My dad and I had largely similar tastes in authors, and we enjoyed finding books that we would both like.  Your books, I'm happy to say, are at the top of the list.  My father passed away from cancer last year.  The last book he gave me to read was Sharpe's Assassin.  We both liked it and were able to talk about it.  Sharpe was one of Dad's favorite characters, although Uhtred might have edged him out (one of my students is currently working at Bebbanburg, but that is for another email).

My dad passed away last March.  When Sharpe's Command came out, I knew I'd read it, and it would be bittersweet. But I did read it, and enjoyed it, and it felt like my dad was reading it with me.

Thank you for that, and I look forward to Sharpe and Harper marching again.

Bill Plasse

Dear Mr Cornwell,

I think I must have written this email 3 or 4 times in an attempt to put into words what can be really said in two. Thank You.

I wanted to reach out and say thank you for everything you’ve written. I’m sure many of your legions of fans have written to say the same but I just wanted to share my story reading your works.

I have very recently signed a publishing contract to publish 3 of my own books (www.ben-baldwin.co.uk for more info - let me know if you want a copy in November!) and quite frankly I’d have never achieved this dream if it wasn’t for you and Mr Sharpe.

Let me start at the beginning, I was ten - failing at school, dyslexic, could barely read, until the day I picked up my dad’s Sharpe’s Honour. (Now that was an interesting conversation at school in English I can tell you - try telling your teacher the protagonist just gutted a frenchman!) I even mention it in my own bio!

From there my grades flew up, I fell in love with reading, with history. I was able to go to university, I met my wife who I’ve gone on to have two children with. All for that moment when I picked up your book!

I’m sure we all have life changing moments, (I enjoyed reading how you met your wife in the Square Mile interview) and I genuinely don’t think I’d be sat here if it wasn’t for reading your books. They were the kick start I needed in life.

Now as I start my own writing career I wanted to come back to the start and say thank you. I love that you’ve started writing Sharpe again, I always think your writing is the perfect example of someone who genuinely loves their character. I hope to have the same relationship  in my own works.

I look forward to reading more of your works and hope one day to have inspired even one person like me with my own works.

My regards to your wife Judy and wish her well in her health.

All the best

Ben Baldwin

My late father, Roy Hayden of Manor Road in Thundersley used to say he knew your elder brother well, and that you as a child (on at least one occasion) came to my father's home at 10 manor road.

I do not expect you to remember him personally, but is that possible?

Thank you. I love the Sharpe collection.

Neil Hayden