Your Questions

Dear Bernard

I know you said you don't want to take Sharpe back again but why not use another character like Fredrickson. In Sharpe Siege, Fredrickson does tell Sharpe, he was lucky he missed San Sebastian. There seems an obvious story there. Plus unlike Sharpe, Fredrickson DOES go to North America and even just 1 book in the War of 1812 would be awesome.

Regards

Geraint

Side Note. there is also the East Coast expedition of Castalla/Tarragona and Ordal Cross. General Fredrick Adam despite being at Waterloo doesn't get enough love because he was only in these operations  in my opinion.

Adams victory at Biar over Suchet is not well known http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/combat_biar.html

As a further add on. Iv been informed that The De Rolls Regiment which is in the British East Coast force while a Redcoated Regiment, its Light Company was actually equipped with Rifles and was a full on Rifle Company. Sharpe needs to meet these Redcoated Riflemen :)

 

Good afternoon.

Regarding "Sharpe's Waterloo" - was the story of the fattest officer in the Prussian Army, carrying the news that Napoleon was moving, based on truth, or an exercise in fiction?

Regards

Geoff Brown

Orde Wingate.

Had he not died, he was touted to be the leader of the IDF (Israel Defense Force) And guess what?

He was a Christian.

 

All the best

Garth Robinson

Can't wait until September for the next adventure.! I have all  the series taking pride of place on my book shelf. All of them have been read at least twice and mostly three times! I understand the new volume will continue where the last left off. But what about Sharpe's early years - his childhood in the slums . How did he come to join the army? How did the animosity with Sgt. Hakeswill come about  How did he wind up in France and what happened  there? Surely there's  scope there for another book!

Pat Lee

Dear Mr Cornwell -

first of all, thank you for your novels, which fill my bookshelves and have been read and re-read. With Sharpe about to return, I wondered if you were aware of the story of Rifleman Christopher Ingham, who served with the 1st Battalion 95th Rifles from 1809 to 1829?

He then became the first and long-serving landlord of The Reservoir Tavern, in Keighley, West Yorks, and died in 1866 at the age of 80. His gravestone in Utley Cemetery, just outside Keighley, records his battle honours, including Waterloo.

I'm interested in his story because he's local to my own roots and his service gives a tangible link to the events you portray so well in the Sharpe series. Below is a link to a story about Christopher Ingham in the local newspaper (The Keighley News), including an image of his gravestone.

https://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/18836723.memory-lane-distinguished-soldier-first-landlord-keighley-pub/

Best regards,

Duncan Smith.

I recently became active in a Tennessee Civil War reenacting group, the 12th Tennessee Artillery (Union) and one of my new friends lent The Starbuck Chronicles to me.  I haven’t been able to put them down since I started them.  I am currently reading Battle Flag.  A looming disappointment awaits me knowing that this work is unfinished.  I have become vested in the characters.  These books are such a great read, especially if you love Civil War era history.  Most of the books I read are non-fiction, but I have learned a lot about actual events from the books from a human perspective that I haven’t gleaned from the actual historic interpretations.  I love the dynamic between the Starbuck and Faulconer families.  Both with their traitor sons.  Anyway, I’ll not bore you with a long message about all that I love about your books.  All I really want to know, is there any chance this story will be completed?  In our modern world, to talk about history is soiled heavily by current partisan politics and sensitivity.  I wish it wasn’t so.  Thank you for writing these books and I sincerely hope they may be completed some day.  Thank you.

Justin Gillespie

 

Dear Bernard,

It is wonderful to see a new Sharpe book is in the offing, but I have always been curious as to why there have been no further books in the Starbucks Chronicles.  It feels like one is left up in the air and I wonder if you intend to tie the stories up in future?  I am a great fan of your writing and am extremely pleased that there is a new Sharpe story coming.

Wiktor Falko

Dear Sir

I really enjoyed your book titled The pagan Lord. I have a question. Petty or trivial as it may seem. To my eye it’s out of context.

Why has the illustrator placed a cross on the front cover of the book. Instead of  Thor’s Hammer?

Hope you don’t mind my asking.

Yours faithfully

Marlene Phillips

I have read as many of your books that I can get hold of and find myself engrossed in each one.  Thank you.  I have two questions, please.  Firstly, is there enough evidence available for you to create a tale about the period after the Romans leaving and before the arrival of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes?  The Britons, the Romans with links who stayed, perhaps?

Secondly, I have traced my family tree back to 1486.  Is there a tale in the period after the Black Death?  The loss of population, local power vacuums.  Did old enmities over the losses of power of old Anglo Saxon to the Normans some generations earlier re-surface, perhaps old scores being settled?  What was the chaos endured while society got back on its feet again?  Echoes of to-day?  Perhaps too tenuous.

Thank you for your work.

David Cobbe.

 

Dear Bernard

I wondered of you'd seen this article on Najera and wondered if you'd ever considered it as a sequel to 1356 As a battle it did feature Bernard DeGuseclin,  who after Joan of Arc one of the most famous French soldiers of the Hundred Years War http://paginaspersonales.deusto.es/abaitua/kanpetzu/primate/najera1367.htm

Regards

Geraint

Dear Mr Cornwell,

please allow me to thank you for (in brief) the better part of your career as an author - your novels have been a consistent source of colour & adventure in a blessedly quiet life.

Now, getting to the specific subject of this message (as opposed to the more general topic of my admiration for your work), might one please ask if you have ever given thought to what Mr & Mrs Samuel Gilpin were up to during the War of 1812?

I get this powerful mental impression of Mr Gilpin (presumably somewhere as inherently horsey as Kentucky) going “Not this again” while his Missus radiates powerful “This time we’re getting Canada” Patriotic Enthusiasm - not to mention an image of poor old Sam doing everything but fix bayonet & mount guard over his boys (for fear one of them inherited their late uncle’s common sense aka cockeyed optimism) and learning the hard way that what he REALLY should have worried himself about was a daughter with her mother’s Patriotic Convictions and her father’s gift with horses!

Best Wishes,

ED.