Taken from Goldsboro's Confessions of a Book Collector podcast, David Headley interviews historical fiction titan, Bernard Cornwell OBE. From the enduring presence of Richard Sharpe to the creation of The Last Kingdom, Bernard reflects on how history and curiosity have shaped his writing life.
David:
I am honoured today to be with the Master, a legend, one of our long time supportive authors at Goldsboro. It is none other than Bernard Cornwell, welcome, Bernard.
Bernard:
Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be back.
David:
We have been friends of yours and colleagues and supporters, the team here at Goldsboro, for very many years. I think since we opened, you have been here every year to sign books, nearly every year. We're very grateful for that.
But you're here today because your new book, Sharpe's Storm, has just been published, and it is absolutely brilliant. And I want to talk to you about this because you threatened, it might be the last one. I'm hoping it's not going to be!
Why did you go back to Sharpe, and why, particularly this period? Because you've had a struggle writing this one. You started it with a storyline that turned into a complication. But set the scene for us, please.
Bernard:
Why did I go back to Sharpe? I don't feel I go back to him. I mean, I've been writing Sharpe now for over 40 years, and he lives with me. I mean, he's in my head all the time. I hear Sean Bean's voice, good old Yorkshireman. And I'd always intended to write at least one other Sharpe, and there are gaps in his career which I can fill, although those gaps are getting fewer and narrower.
And also, I'm now over 80 years old, and I thought I deserve an easy book to write. You know, just unleashing Sharpe — which turned out to be one of the most difficult, bloody books I've ever written.
So will I go back to him? The answer is probably yes, because I can imagine that in three or four years from now, if I'm still alive, I’ll think, well, let's unleash him again.
David:
But you've set it back in 1813. Why did you go back to that particular time? It was a big gap, right?
Bernard:
I thought it was a big gap. It turned out it wasn't.
It was also partly because I was reading the diary of an officer who had gone through the whole thing, and he claimed that the battle of St Pierre was the worst battle he was in in the whole war. And that included he'd been at Albuera, which was a ghastly business — and Sharpe can't be at Albuera.
And I thought, wow, that sounds rather interesting. So that was why I thought I’ll put Sharpe in this dreadful battle.
David:
So this is right before Sharpe’s Siege?
Bernard:
Yes, and after Sharpe’s Regiment.
David:
And what was the particular point of this? I know, because I've read it, but I want you to tell it — because there's something that happens in this that you wanted Sharpe to go through.
Bernard:
Yes. I mean, the whole point of the book was the crossing of the River Adour.
The circumstances are that Wellington’s army — I'm not going to say trapped, but it’s cornered in the bottom southwest corner of France. He's faced with a larger army, and rivers that are going to block his advance.
And in February 1814, the British Army and the Royal Navy together pull off this quite brilliant manoeuvre of crossing the estuary of the River Adour, which is far too wide. I think the bridge would have had to be something like three quarters of a mile across, in a tidal estuary with a rise and fall of over 15 feet.
It was probably the most brilliant piece of military engineering of the whole Napoleonic and Revolutionary Wars. And I thought, okay, Sharpe has got to be involved in that, and it will make a wonderful ending to the book.
Bernard:
I got about two thirds of the way through the book. I had done endless research on this bridge — endless research. And then I went to check Sharpe’s Siege, which is the book that follows, just to find out whether someone was alive or not.
And I found out that Sharpe couldn't possibly be there when the bridge was made.
And my whole ending just collapsed.
So I had to invent a new ending, which, in the end, I was rather pleased with — but I won't say what it is.
David:
Well I knew that the reason why we didn't have a Sharpe last year was because you had a two body problem. But also in this book, you’re not just putting Sharpe against enemy forces — you throw him against winter conditions. He's battling the elements.
Bernard:
Yeah, it was a ghastly wet season. From the moment they left the Pyrenees, it started to rain, and it didn't stop raining. Just rained incessantly.
So they were always wet, always miserable.
David:
Sharpe seems more mellow in this one.
Bernard:
Oh, did I mess it up that badly?
David:
(laughs) Maybe it's because they’re not in order, are they?
Bernard:
Yes, and when you meet him, he's different sometimes.
He's worried in this one. What he's worried about is that he knows the war is ending. Even if they don't break out of this southwest corner of France, there's the Austrians, the Russians, and the Prussians coming to hit Napoleon from the north and the east.
Like everybody else in the army, he sees the war ending. And Sharpe has done nothing in his adult life except be in the army. And he's worrying: what do I do in peacetime?
He’s also got this expensive wife, and he's not at all sure he should have married her. He's just worried about his future career.
David:
Well, it is brilliant. It was wonderful to be back in Sharpe’s world again. I hope we will meet him again.
I know that you’ve said you want to write two more books. Are you already working on those?
Bernard:
I'm writing one at the moment. I have an idea for the one beyond that that will keep me busy for the next two years.
If I'm still alive after that, it might be another Sharpe or it might be something completely different. I have no idea.
David:
Bernard, I hope that you'll live forever, and I and I think you will. Your energy is inspiring. But let's go back to sharp. Forty years of Sharpe — where did he come from?
Bernard:
Well, he came years and years ago, before I even started writing.
I was a journalist, and like a lot of journalists and school teachers, I thought I would like to be a novelist. It seemed a better career than working.
It really began with Hornblower.
I began reading Hornblower around the age of 15 or 16, read all 11 books, and then realised there were no more.
And that’s horrible when you like someone and suddenly there are no more adventures.
Bernard:
The only recourse was to start reading the real histories of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Through those, I discovered the extraordinary achievements of Wellington and his army.
And I thought, well, there’s got to be a series like Hornblower, only on the army.
So I haunted bookshops looking for that series. And it didn’t exist.
Eventually a little light went off in my head and said: you always wanted to write a book. Write that one.
David:
So he’s Hornblower on land?
Bernard:
Yes — but not such a nice man as Hornblower.
David:
I was going to ask you about Hornblower because I knew he was an influence on you. But he started as a common soldier, and then his rose through the ranks. I guess that was a natural progression for him to go through the ranks.
Bernard:
The only things I worked out before I even began writing him were that he had to come up from the ranks, and he had to be a rifleman. That made him an outsider.
And I discovered quite early on that his enemies couldn’t really be the French — his enemies had to be on his own side.
Those early decisions proved very useful.
David:
The phenomenon that became a TV series with Sean Bean, do you see Sean when you write?
Bernard:
I don’t see Sean — I hear him. That Yorkshire voice is in my head.
In the very first book Sharpe's Eagle, I give a physical description of Sharpe and he's definitely black haired.
I still get letters to this day from people saying, how could you like Sean, he doesn’t have the right hair colour. But he was perfect. He got him.
So I hear that Yorkshire voice in my head. Sometimes I'm walking the dog, and suddenly Sharpe will say to me "That's horrible looking dog out there!"
David:
Were you proud of the TV series?
Bernard:
I loved it. I think largely owing to Sean, who was the perfect Sharpe. And he really was perfect. He got him.
He can't go back, though, because he's got older so if they want to film this new book, they're going to have to do something with CGI. Or they're gonna have to find somebody new if they ever want to remake it.
Bernard:
But I can't imagine anybody remaking the Sharpe series. It's there. It's done.
David:
True, but there's more stories to be told.
Bernard:
Well, then maybe they will remake it!
David:
You’ve had huge success with TV and other books. The Uhtred series, which is your other great series, which I absolutely loved. In fact I'm going to fan boy you right now.. I've read everything!
You wrote Stonehenge before Ken Follett wrote it. You've written the Arthurian trilogy, probably likely my most favourite trilogy of any books I've ever read. And then Thomas o Huckton - an amazing series. And then you wrote Agincourt.
I mean, you've had a wonderful career, but let's talk about Uhtred, because I think that's possibly one of the greatest series about Britain that I've ever read. Why did you write that? Why did you go from Sharp to that?
Bernard:
Well, that's nice to hear.
A decade ago, I realised that Sharpe was coming to his conclusion (which he obviously didn't and hasn't!).
I'd long been interested in Anglo Saxons, mainly because of having studied it at university, and one of the worst experiences of my life is trying to learn Anglo Saxon.
But I loved the Anglo Saxon works that I'd read, and it occurred to me that I had no idea how England came to be. By this time, I was living in America, and America knows exactly where it came from, and celebrates it every July the fourth.
But if you'd asked me, how did England begin, I just didn't know. So I set out to find out, and the easy way to find out was to write it.
Bernard:
And so if you like, the big story at the back of Uhtred is the making of England.
The little story, which is in the forefront, happened because at about the age of 50, I met my real father for the first time.
He was living in Canada, and his surname was ortred, which is Uhtred just changed over centuries, and he gave me a family tree, and I discovered that I was distantly related or descended from a man called Uhtred who had held on to his fortress in Northumbria despite the whole of Northumbria falling to the Vikings.
And I thought, that's interesting. That's my story.
So ostensibly, the stories are about Uhtred hanging on or regaining his birthright, but the biggest story in the background is that England is being made.
David:
It is terrific, absolutely wonderful, I suppose, because I'm a North Yorkshire man, and I grew up in York, surrounded by history, and been endlessly fascinated where my family comes from.
I started my family history when I was 16 years old and had to go to the library and read loads of files and electronic files and papers. I found out I'm absolutely French and Icelandic. I'm a proud Englishman, but I don't descend from Yorkshire.
Bernard:
There's one of my ancestors buried in York Minster, Orchard? I think, a royal chaplain.
That gene didn't come back down very far. Another one invented the slide rule, and he was a professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. And I'm particularly proud of this - he died of joy when he heard of the restoration of King Charles the second.
I just think he just celebrated so hard he had a heart attack, but he invented the slide rule, and that's a gene that didn't come down to me.
David:
Let's go back then, because family is important to you and your history is important to you. And you've mentioned Hornblower, but were you a big reader then as a child? Were you a bookish boy?
Bernard:
I was, very much so, and loved historical fiction, and I've long believed since I began to write, that when you write, you write for yourself, you write the books you want to read, and if you're lucky, an agent and a publisher will also like them.
And if you're really lucky, customers will like them too.
But I mean, to this day, I write books I want to read, which is probably something I should never admit, considering what the books are, but there you go.
David:
What did you start reading? Historical fiction? George MacDonald Fraser?
Bernard:
Oh, yeah. Well, he came a bit later.
I loved Flashman, and I met George many times. I treasure some notes he sent me, one of which reads something like after the AV, a man thinks twice before committing murder. Yours, George.
David:
I met him very early in Goldsboro Books' life. He was a naturally funny gentleman, very nice man.
Do you remember when you first started writing?
Bernard:
I do remember when I began to write. When I was writing my first book, I took two books. One I'm sure was a Hornblower and the other was The Paladin.
And I literally broke them down. I did these huge enormous charts that were pinned up on the wall, which broke each chapter down, what was in it, when there was action, when there was dialog.
And in essence, you know, if you're going to make the world's best mousetrap, you examine all the other mouse traps. So I examined these two mouse traps.
I don't know if that helped at all, but it did in a bit. I mean, there were moments when I would find myself in difficulty how to move from one scene to another, and I would look at these charts and find out how they did it.
And I never kept them. I don't know they've long disappeared into the bin, which is a pity.
David:
So does this all come naturally to you now?
Bernard:
It does, yes. I always say to people, I'm not an historian, I'm a storyteller.
When I wrote my only non fiction book, which is on Waterloo, I was determined that to tell it like it was a novel.
And about a year ago, I met Eric Larson, and he said the same thing about his books, which I found very interesting, because he's hugely successful, that he writes his books as though they were stories, and it works.
David:
I assumed you'd written more than one non fiction, but actually other people have written non fiction around Sharpe - including recipes and food - and they've literally engaged into your world. They're obsessed with your world!
Are you a book collector?
Bernard:
Yes. My wife complains about it.
David:
If you had to leave your house and could only take one book with you, what would it be?
Bernard:
A signed first edition by John Cowper Powys. He's not the easiest of authors, but he's the only one who I collect, and with great glee find a signed first edition by him, which I have about six or seven.
David:
I'm surprised, as we were talking offline before we started this conversation, you said that your favourite thriller author is John Sanford?
Bernard:
Yes, absolutely. I mean, John Sanford is, I think, very big in the States. He's an American author, and for some strange reason, doesn't seem to sell very well here.
But I think he's the greatest thriller police procedural writer ever. He's wonderful.
David:
You're right. He's is big in America. And there's lots of great thriller writers, crime writers in America that have never really broken through here, but that's exactly the same that could be said for English writers.
You have broken all of those barriers - you're popular in America as well.
Bernard:
I am, which is nice. I don't think they claim me as their own. I think they know I'm very British.
David:
And Are you still acting?
Bernard:
Yes I love it. I don't think I really enjoy going on stage.
But about 10 years ago, I was asked to appear in what they call summer stock theater in the States, which is like a rep theater in a seaside town.
And it was a rather special little theater where the cast was recruited from drama students all across America, and they all auditioned to get a role in this place.
And had all sorts of famous people who'd been there, been part of this thing. And the plays are directed by professional directors from New York and London, and we put on eight plays and two musicals every summer.
Bernard:
Writing is a solitary vice, and it meant for three months every summer, I was in the company of these extraordinary young people who had great talent, huge enthusiasm, and were just fun to be around.
Then about five years ago, a property developer bought the theater and proceeded to ruin it, and instead we started off the Cape Cod Shakespeare Festival, and so I now appear in that. And although it's not nearly as intensive as eight plays and two musicals, we only do two plays a year, it still means I get to spend six or seven weeks in the same company of young, talented people, and I enjoy that.
David:
Bernard, thank you for being here and coming to talk. I know you're going upstairs now to sign some books for us.
Sharpe's Storm is out now, if you haven't read any Sharpe, well, what have you been doing? Go out and read Bernard Cornwell!
