My latest American Historical Review had a review of this book: Ian Haynes, Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans. The reviewer gave it high marks. It covers everything from recruitment, to daily life, to the settlement of veterans. It's empire-wide, but Britain is definitely ( Read more... )

I put together a little roundup of Sutcliff fandoms eligible for trickortreatex over in sutcliff_fics.

Dear Americans who like books on paper, there's a new trade paperback edition of The Mark of the Horse Lord projected this July from Chicago Review Press (the people responsible for the current, green-covered edition of Sword at Sunset) in their "rediscovered classics" line.* Yes, there is already an e-book edition available from Red Fox ( Read more... )

This year three Sutcliff fandoms were nominated for the annual rare fandom fic exchange Yuletide, plus the Eagle movie (I'm posting here mainly because sutcliff_fics gives me an error message and won't load...):

( Nominated fandoms and characters )

Sticktap to sineala again: The Flowers of Adonis ebook is temporarily free on Amazon US, UK, and Canada at least, so check your local.

Flowers is a 1969 adult (i.e. added sex and pessimism) novel told from the perspectives of about a dozen supporting characters who encounter Alkibiades, the Athenian golden boy who rebooted the Peloponnesian War and ( Read more... )

The final third of the interview (from 19:00 on), in which Sutcliff tackles the burning questions of Scotland, the sexual orientation of her protagonists, the three draft formula, and the wisdom and practicability of escaping from desert islands.

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10:45 to 19:00 of the interview, dealing with Sutcliff's work as a painter, her first books, her only relationship, and her writing.
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There don’t seem to be many interviews with Sutcliff readable online, so here’s a transcript of her 1983 BBC Radio Desert Island Discs interview, which you may already have listened to when the link was posted here in March. If you didn’t, it’s half an hour long, draws on her 1983 memoir Blue Remembered Hills, and her observations about her work ( Read more... )

sineala pointed out that Blood and Sand is currently free on US Amazon (not...what I would have chosen as a Sutcliff teaser, but okay, it's also not the Sutcliff I would have chosen to adapt into Takarazuka Revue, either). The review up has an interesting side comment that I'm curious about:

Sutcliff freely acknowledges Scottish historian and ( Read more... )

Rosemarysutcliff.com posted a download link to a 1983 BBC radio interview with Rosemary Sutcliff yesterday, if you want to hear about her life, work, and tastes in music, or are just curious to hear what she sounded like.