The Eagle of the Ninth [book I] (34 page)

Rosemary Sutcliff was born in Surrey, the daughter of a naval officer. At the age of two she contracted the progessively wasting Still’s disease and spent most of her life in a wheelchair. During her early years she had to lie on her back and was read to by her mother: such authors as Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope, as well as Greek and Roman legends. Apart from reading, she made little progress at school and left at fourteen to attend art school, specializing in miniature painting. In the 1940s she exhibited her first miniature in the Royal Academy and was elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters just after the war.

In 1950 her first children’s book,
The Queen’s Story
, was published and from then on she devoted her time to writing the children’s historical novels which have made her such an esteemed and highly respected name in the field of children’s literature.

She received an OBE in the 1975 Birthday Honour’s List and a CBE in 1992.

Rosemary Sutcliff died at the age of 72 in 1992.

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Aquila deserts his regiment to return to his family, but his home and all that he loves are destroyed. Years of hardship and fighting follow and in the end there is only one thing left in Aquila’s life—his thirst for revenge …

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Proceeds from every copy sold will go to benefit Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children

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