Bulletin Board

Hi Mr. Cornwell!

I’m Jack Tapley from Georgia and I’m currently writing you from Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. I’m 24 years old and while my wife and I have been avid readers for years now, I recently found a selection of your books in Barnes & Noble and decided to pickup “The Last Kingdom”. After finishing it in a little over a day and now starting and loving “The Pale Horseman”, I wanted to write you to say, I’m already a huge fan. I know I’m still so early on in the series but with my long lasting fascination I’ve had with Medieval times, to find such a well researched and well written series of books has been incredible. I was hooked from the most I started “The Last Kingdom”. Experiencing Uhtred’s upbringing and how well he had to handle the violence he went through at such a young age really highlighted the life so many of this period went through! It was quite eye opening and interesting! I’ve very excited to get through every book in the series and read everything else you’ve written!

 

Hi Bernard

Killing off Stiorra almost killed your series with me. :/ However, I kept on. You really need to continue the series with Uhtred's son Uhtred. :) I need to know what happens now. Don't fail me. :/ Also I tried 3 or 4 times to watch the TV series, but Uhtred in your books is a blond 6'4" powerful man /l eader. The TV guy is short and dark haired. What..... It kills one of the basic premises of your stories.

Anyway... yeah... never got through the first episode.

Thanks for your super great writing. It has given me many great hours of reading over the years.

RobS

Just want to say Bernard that i`ve mainly read your Uhtred and Arthur books and loved them. But your Sharpe`s Battle has the most full of war scene i`ve probably ever read in my 62 years. I love Robert E Howard and thought he could write a action packed war scene but your Battle of Fuentes De Onoro leaves him for dead. I should also mention i love your Battle of Baden Hill too in Excalibur. Go the 88th Connaught!!!

Wayne

I just read an interview you did last spring.  You mentioned that you are edging toward retirement.  Sorry to hear that for selfish reasons… I have enjoyed each new book and waited not so patiently for the next.   Don’t worry that you are letting us down; you’ve got bigger fish to fry.   And unlike you, most of us fans don’t mind rereading the older books again.

 

Actually I’m happy you haven’t gone down the career extender route that so many others have done…. Bernard Cornwell with someone cowriting the book.   Good for the income but mostly not good for the product.

Bob Laystrom

Hi Mr. Cornwell,

 

I am a twenty three year old bartender, I just graduated college and have now moved from the south out west to Idaho. I am studying for the LSAT (I’ll take it in August and I need to do a lot more in preparation). That’s just a little about me.

 

Here’s some more: I have read your books since I was 15, my father always had a large library, and one day he pointed me to your Saxon tales. I have read almost every book twice, and loved hearing the explicit stories as a youngster. I have since read the grail series, and am half way through your Arthur Trilogy. I found this series at a bookstore, saw your name on it and for whatever reason assumed it was the Grail series, and am pleasantly surprised to find another somewhat fantastical historical fiction. I am a history major and a philosophy minor so all of this is my cup of tea.

 

My thesis in college was inspired by what I read about in the Saxon tales. I argued that Alfred’s push towards Christianity and education was almost as important as the battles and wars he won (Toward the end goal of a united Britain). So thank you for writing and I am excited to see that you have a new book coming out. I will make sure to read the rest of your book series in good time. I watched Sean Beans Sharpe’s tales a few times without realizing that the books it was based on was written by you. So I am excited to read the series as I have a very vivid imagination. So I will read the books which will definitely be better than the show (sorry Sean) and have a beautiful movie going on in my head with Sean as the courageous Sharpe, and all the other characters from the show will be fighting and laughing together with me in my mind. Thank you for all you do.

 

Destiny is all,

Alexander Knight

Dear Bernard

 

I would love to thankyou for the great adventures you have given me and the hours of listening 🎧 pleasure. All day I listen 👂 to the stories in my truck while hauling the dirt and give me some sanity to the insanity that indulges my life 😆. If I can find the chance to one day shake your hand I would hold that memory in much higher regards than shaking our kings hand, for your a king amongst men. I find it interesting that our birthday are 3 days apart and I wonder do you sit by the water to find inspiration for your tales as is our sign from the stars the water. I own a boat golli gooloo named after my grandparents in aborigine as part of my inheritance from their house what was Australia lodge but there I find peace in the world again with the company of your books. My favourite so far has been the Saxon novels uhtred has been a very firm favourite for me Johnathan keeble captured the soul of uhtred but Matt bates did kind of let him down and the voice of good old steapa was lost. The series of the last kingdom has also been a grate love for me also Alex did a great service to your character although there is to much change from your original. I look forward to reading uhtreds feast when the time is right hopefully sometime around Christmas. I wish you well Bernard and I hope you never not lose passion for writing your tales for I am like most of your heroes not much passion for either but you are 1 of the few that truly inspire me and I'm greatly thankful to convey these thoughts to you.

 

Warmest regards and humble appreciation.

 

⚔️Phillip Collins ⚔️

Dear Mr. Cornwell,

I read an article in today’s NYTimes about the repatriation of art from museums. The point was that all subsequent calls for the return of art began in 1815 with the effort of the allies to send back the art in the Louvre (Musee Napoleon) that had been looted by Napoleon. Well, guess where I first learned about that? “Sharpe’s Assassin”. In your historical notes, you say that you anticipated the actual beginning of the repatriation process by a few months. I’m glad you did. The scenes of Sharpe, Harper, Pat Bee and the monkey in the Louvre are wonderful.

 

I began reading the Sharpe books back in the early 90s as the flip side of Patrick O’Brien’s naval saga. I loved having both the army and navy point of view. I’ve enjoyed the times you’ve had Sharpe aboard ships. I’ve also been intrigued by the glimpses of Sharpe and Lucille’s life offered by including Patrick Lassan in the Starbuck Chronicles. He’s my favorite character even if he only appears in brief scenes.

 

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve traded in all my paperbacks for a complete collection of ebooks which I reread regularly — larger print. Thank you for sticking with Sharpe when you have so many other wonderful historical eras to continue exploring.

 

Sincerely,

Gail Hahn

Mr. Cornwell,

 

Let me first suggest you are probably the best military historical fiction writer out there. Let me suggest in the second I will buy whatever you write! Sharpe is the greatest! He has totally eclipsed the Horatio Hornblower. I want him to have a happy retirement someday watching Patrick Lasan's explioits or otherwise!

 

I've probably bought every book you've ever written. Some more than once! In paper, or in later years audio, as my own combat experiences over the last 15 years or so  have eroded my attention span (this is a semi-legitimate excuse, but I will ever view it as my own defect that I have eroded as a reader of paper books over the years).

 

There’s this problem I have though….. The Starbuck Chronicles are both great and I feel unfinished. There is a finish there which leads into Starbuck becoming something else, him fleeing to the UK after the death of the Confederacy or his or Lasan’s children with Sally Truslow, fighting in WWI, the 2nd Boer War or both!

I could totally see a scarred and cynical Nathaniel Starbuck as a similar character to the old Colonel portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins in “Legends of the Fall” a good story,  if overly melodramatic! WWI is a great source of stories! Frankly I wish I had your talent and could tell those stories myself!

 

I’m a dedicated “reader” no matter what. Thank you for being a great storyteller who has improved my life and inspired me to learn about the real people who lived lives like the fictional ones you have constructed! I have and will continue to enjoy every moment of your stories!

 

I want to tell you too that as a die hard Sharpe and also Uhtred fan,  Nathaniel Starbuck's "Russian Roulette" moment with the yellow leg officer with the self inflicted skin condition who unknowingly insulted Sally Truslow was one of the best scenes you ever wrote! I loved it all through!

 

Gregory Krause

Just now, not five minutes ago, I finished War Lord. It was the bittersweet final passage of every book you have written. I remember when my wife doing her Christmas shopping brought home a book she thought I might enjoy, one of the Starbuck Chronicles. As a history major turned lawyer, I have savored every sentence of every page of Sharpe, Grail Quest, Stonehenge,  Arthur, all the stand alone stories, and everything else you ever published. The most amazing thing about your stories is that each series stands alone in its own unique writing style! I don't know of any other author that has pulled that off as well as you. In no small part because of you, I hiked the Ridgeway from Avebury past the hill forts and Alfred's victory at Edingtun. I can't possibly thank you for what your work has meant to me. I've read them all, and if you wrote a hundred more, I would read them too. Thanks!

John M. Smith

Dear Bernard,

 

Please don't worry about a timely reply (or any reply at all, really, unless the spirit moves you). I just wanted to drop a line and let you know that I'm very much enjoying the Sharpe novels, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to read them! Having watched both the Sharpe TV movies and The Last Kingdom series, and being an avid reader of Dumas, Sabatini, Forester, Conan Doyle, etc., you'd think I'd have read you before now. But it's wonderful to find something new in this vein after decades of reading!

 

I also wanted to mention that my hat's off to you re: the research that's gone into your books. I'm an author of trashy romance novels myself (not to worry, no manuscript, story ideas, or other horrors are coming your way -- I sometimes have to deflect those myself, though on a much smaller scale), and I've written a few historical romances along the way. One of them involves a Royal Navy officer who briefly visits Spain in 1810, and I have to tell you -- it's not easy to pin down precise movements of anyone, is it? It was such a background element of my book (which wasn't really about the war at all), and yet trying to find where Wellington might have been in a specific month of a specific year was...surprisingly difficult. I found that in his own book about the war, he tells the reader where literally everyone was except for himself!

 

Now that I think about it, I really should just have emailed you to ask, since I'm sure you would have had it in your notes. But now, on the advice of a couple of scholars of the period, I have a nice collection of books about the Peninsular War and the Royal Navy, so that's a plus.

 

In any case, that little bit of research into that specific time and place has given me a new appreciation for your research, which just adds to the pleasure of being well entertained.

 

Thanks! I hope you're well, and best wishes for more books and all the good things in life.

 

Best,

Elena