Your Questions

Q

Hi Bernard was just wondering if you listen to music whilst you're writing and if you have any songs or pieces of music which remind you of any of your characters. I only ask this because I was listening to Tom Petty's Greatest Hits the other day and I remembered the first time I listened to that album I was reading Crackdown and the songs brought back really strong images from the book, especially my favorite character Maggot. I just thought this was a bit weird as I read that book 10 years ago and haven't read it since. Heather

Submitted April 6, 2007

A

I don't! I've tried, and find it distracting, so don't any more. Though sometimes, when I wrote the Arthur stories and wanted my blood stirred, I would put in a CD of a Welsh male voice choir - and tried to imagine the sound of an army singing before battle. Chills the blood as well as stirs it!

Q

Hi Bernard Cornwell! It's a pleasure to me to right to you. I've read many of your books and I'm particularly interested in the Chronicles of Arthur. I have to do a monograph to College and I've chosen this theme: the influence of the epoch in the writer's way to compose the character. So that I'd like to ask you if the epoch you wrote the books (the chronicles of Arthur) has influenced you to built the character of King Arthur. I would appreciate if you could send me an answer. Thanks a lot ! Alessandra Fagundes from Brazil

Submitted April 6, 2007

A

I think so! Though in some ways my Arthur was anachronistic (in my view) because he alone of all the characters in those books is not really beset by religion. He probably should have been. There is some evidence that Arthur was a pagan (which is why the early church disliked him), and so part of his character comes from the fight between Christianity and paganism. I suppose that I wanted to write a good man living in evil times! So perhaps he is not of his own era, but every era. I'm not sure human nature changes at all, while our circumstances do change drastically. I suppose the biggest influence of the era on the character is that the times in post-Roman Britain were so bad, so awful, that only a very good man could rise above them, and thus Arthur. I have a horrible feeling I'm not helping you at all.

Q

I'm reading the Saxon Stories, because I've reread the Sharpe Series, The Grail Quest & more. Please kill off more of the characters, I do believe you have become more of a screen writer, keeping them alive to avoid having to come up with new ones. How can people live a less violent life in Saxon - Viking times than Napoleonic? Simple research would suggest far more people living longer in the later time. So go ahead and write screenplays and books at the same time, but give us more Sharpe books. I will visit the Iberian peninsula someday to check the stories out. Thank-you. Mitchell C. Johnson

Submitted April 6, 2007

A

Never written a screen play in my life, and probably never will? Not quite sure what your point is (I'm being thick this morning). Not enough folk die in the Saxon stories? I'll try and improve the score for you.

Q

Have finally read ALL of your books (except the two short stories) and wanted to let you know how very much I have enjoyed them. Did not understand your preference for the Arthur series until I picked them up again after finishing everything else. Now they are among my favorites too. Sought out Rifleman Dodd after reading your recommendation, and am now looking for other adventures in reading. Have found Ambrose Bierce's American Civil War stories. What do you think of them? I am so far impressed with his voice. Saw someone else recommended King of the Khyber Rifles...one of my favorites when I was a young girl, along with Kipling's Kim. Have started Zoe Oldenbourg's French crusade series, but finding it slow going. Hornblower long gone, and Sabatini is not my cup of tea. Would love to get a push in a new direction. (By the way...I did enjoy the books you wrote with your wife, as a change from the darker series you wrote alone, but I prefer the dark I am afraid.)And add me to the list of those who wait for Starbucks and Gallows Thief to continue! Thank you for many hours well spent with Sharpe and Harper, and your other wonderful characters. Paula Tupper

Dr Mr. Cornwell, Two years ago I discovered and got hooked to Patrick OBriens stories and soon afterwards by Foresters Hornblower series. Last month I discovered your books. Ive read the first of Arthurs, breezed through your first 4 of Sharpe, and am currently reading the fifth of that series. I look forward to the rest of your collections and wonder if you had any advice on similar authors for when I catch up with your writing and need to give you time to finish the next novel. Regard Aurelio Garcia-Ribeyro

Submitted April 6, 2007

A

Ambrose Bierce? I think they're wonderful . . . and thank you or reminding me! Much too long since I read them.

For other great recommendations, be sure to take a look at the Reading Club pages of this website.

Q

Bernard, the books are all great (although getting a tad predictable) and the weaving in to actual history is fantastic. I am writing to see if you are aware of the effect of your books on wargamers here in the UK. We read the books avidly and the Arthur series (my all time favourite) is now responsible for a Warhammer Historical supplement for which many manufacturers are now making figures. Have you ever tried Wargaming? Having read you family History recently (in the daily mail?) I to seem to have had a strange affinity with the North East of England although born and bred in East Anglia and in the last month my Niece has just found out I have a half sister I never knew about from Croft on Tees. Bit of a shock when you are 51 - Life is just as strange as fiction! Steve Wilson

Submitted April 6, 2007

A

Life is often stranger than fiction! We novelists struggle to keep up. I never have tried wargaming, this is partly to protect Sharpe's reputation . . imagine his horror as he loses to some 16 year old. No, think Sharpe had better stay well away...

Q

AHA!! Just saw in a genealogy that there was an Earl Uhtred of Northumbria, who married Elfgifu, the daughter of King Ethelred...could it be our Uhtred?? Fionna

Submitted April 6, 2007

A

It is! Or at least it's that family - which is my family - there was a whole succession of Uhtreds who were (mostly) Earls of Northumbria in the pre-Conquest era. The family still thrives, though now spells its name Oughtred and lives, mostly, in Yorkshire or British Columbia. I am a by-blow (they were always good at that).

Q

Dear Bernard, I enjoyed 'Gallows Thief' very much, and particularly the colourful and often bizarre vocabulary that your London characters used. I noticed (correct me if I'm wrong) that none of them referred to each other as 'mate', which contemporary Londoners seem to do all the time, taxi-drivers especially. Did that term of address not exist in Regency times? Sorry, this is not the most riveting of questions, but I am very much curious, and I wonder when did it ever creep into everyday use. Do you have any idea? Thank you. Paul Reid, County Cork.

Submitted April 6, 2007

A

The word enters the language very early - 14th Century - but its popularity seems to explode in the 19th (I'm deducing this from the citations in the OED). In Gallows Thief it's part of the 'Flash' language, which was the argot used by underworld London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries - a 'private' language so dense that some magistrate's courts employed translators. Many flash words crossed over into mainstream English, and I suspect mate was one of them . .in the jocular sense . . it already had a perfectly respectable existence as a naval rank, or to describe a wife or husband.

Q

Hello :) Its hard to know exactly how to say something that has not already been said or that will not bore you ...so forgive but....I won't try :) I really enjoy your books and think a good deal to be the best I have ever read - something I personally think to be amazing considering my staunch and stubborn attachment to such books as Terry Pratchett :) I do have one question however, I have not yet read ANY of your Sharpe series - this may sound an odd question but do you suggest reading them in order of publication or the chronological order you have on the site? And should I be prepared for a good deal of change from the TV series ..which yes I admit..I did watch first (forgive me) Lastly...please don't get bored.....could you possibly give an aging man some kind of hope...(and forgive me on this because it might just be something I got from the TV series and you may not have written it at all)......please tell me......did Frederickson ever get his set of teeth made in England? Many thanks and I truly hope you are well. Frazer

Submitted March 29, 2007

A

I generally recommend reading the Sharpe books in chronological order (you'll find the listing on the Sharpe books page of this website). And yes, you will find there are some differences between the novels and the films. Frederickson's teeth? Do you know? I don't know! I'll take a guess for you, yes.

Q

hi, I am a big fan of all your books espsecially the saxon tales, also the Sharpe novels but I have a thing you may have overlooked Obidiah hawkswill died in Sharpe's Fortress but he's back in Sharpe's Company, how did he escape the snake pit? Jamie Foyle

Submitted March 29, 2007

A

The snakes wouldn't touch him! He survived. He couldn't be killed (says so in the scripture)!

Q

Hi Bernard, I actually read your book "The winter king" in the German translation. It's the first book of you I read and I like it. I think I've found a mistake. You have written about swords, made of steel. But steel doesn't exist in the fifth century. Steel is an invention of the eighteenth century. Greetings from Germany Christoph Keseberg

Submitted March 29, 2007

A

Greetings! Steel did exist! The Saxons even had a word for it - 'steeli' occurs at the period of the books I write! But I know what you mean. You're right, of course, that the steel-making process was not understood until the 19th Century, and today steel means iron containing less than 1.7% of carbon (just looked it up), but steel did exist! Experienced blacksmiths noted the different properties of the iron they forged, and how some was brittle and some was more pliable, and they learned how to make each kind by trial and error. They did not know why it worked! But they knew that keeping the iron on the fire for differing periods produced different types of iron, and one they called steel . . . . and they did use that word (it's mentioned in the great Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf) So I decided I could too . . . . thanks!