A British writer of [[HistoricalFiction historical fiction]] for [[YoungAdult children]] who published some fifty books between 1950 and 1997. Best known for her works set in Roman Britain, most famously ''Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth''.
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!! Recurring themes and tropes typical of Rosemary Sutcliff's work include:

* AuthorCatchphrase
* BigFriendlyDog: Ubiquitous.
* BittersweetEnding: Victory is fleeting, but HeroicSacrifice is forever. They'll [[EarnYourHappyEnding Earn Their Happy Ending]] at the least; at worst TheHeroDies.
* BuryYourDisabled: Constantly averted. ''Warrior Scarlet'', ''A Circlet of Oak Leaves'', ''Dawn Wind'', ''The Shining Company'', ''Sword Song'', ''The Witch's Brat'', ''The Queen Elizabeth Story'', ''Lady in Waiting'', [[spoiler: ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''The Capricorn Bracelet'', ''Blood Feud'', ''Simon'', and ''Bonnie Dundee'']] feature protagonists or prominent characters with physical disabilities.
** This is RealitySubtext - Rosemary Sutcliff developed arthritis when she was very young and used a wheelchair for most of her life.
* CultureClash: Individuals connecting across cultural barriers is Sutcliff's bread and butter.
* EndOfAnAge: [[TropeCodifier The decline and fall of the Roman Empire]] in Britain, with the Dark Ages in the role of AfterTheEnd.
* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: For the Celts against the Romans; the Britons against the Saxons; and the Saxons against the Normans. Versus history, basically.
* HeroesLoveDogs
* HeroicSacrifice
** HumanSacrifice: A common thematic and plot point in pagan settings (e.g. ''Warrior Scarlet'', ''The Changeling'', ''The Flowers of Adonis'', ''The Mark of the Horse Lord'', ''Dawn Wind''), often as a form of HeroicSacrifice ([[spoiler:''The Chief's Daughter'']]) frequently associated with kingship ([[spoiler: ''Sun Horse, Moon Horse''; ''The Mark of the Horse Lord''; ''Frontier Wolf''; ''Knight's Fee'']]).
* HeterosexualLifePartners: If it's not the central relationship of the book, the protagonist probably has one in the background. ''Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth'', ''Blood Feud'', and ''Knight's Fee'' contain notable examples. [[OneThingLedToAnother Inevitably leads to:]]
** HoYay: Deliberate in ''Sword At Sunset''; presumably conscious in ''The Mark of the Horse Lord'' and other YA novels.
* {{Historical Domain Character}}s: Usually limited to cameos, but ''Lady in Waiting'' (Sir Walter Ralegh); ''The Rider of the White Horse'' (Sir Thomas Fairfax); ''Sword At Sunset'' (Artos); ''The Flowers of Adonis'' (Alcibiades); ''Song for a Dark Queen'' (Boudicca); ''Bonnie Dundee'' (John Graham of Claverhouse); and ''Blood and Sand'' (Thomas Keith) are based on the lives of real (or [[KingArthur allegedly real]]) people
* HistoryMarchesOn: Not all of her research has held up against later discoveries and interpretations - most notoriously, the Ninth Legion might or might not have been [[LostRomanLegion lost.]]
* MadeASlave: Happens with some regularity to her protagonists or their sidekicks, including in ''Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth'', ''Outcast'', ''The Mark of the Horse Lord'', ''Blood Feud'', ''The Shining Company'', [[spoiler: ''The Flowers of Adonis'', ''Sun Horse, Moon Horse'', ''The Lantern Bearers'', and ''Dawn Wind'']].
* TheQueensLatin: Despite the lack of accents in text, Roman characters clearly speak British English... in contrast to ''British'' characters.
* {{Supporting Protagonist}}s: [[HeterosexualLifePartners Heterosexual Life Partnerships]] are often seen from the perspective of the less dynamic (and/or socially inferior) of the pair. {{Historical Domain Character}}s are almost invariably presented through a Supporting Protagonist.
* TheVerse: Despite a dearth of direct sequels, WordOfGod [[http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/intrvws/sutcliff.htm has it]] that "it is all part of the same series, really", as borne out by consistent world-building and a few recurring details.
** The Flavius family's signet ring, a dolphin on a flawed emerald, is passed down through ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''The Silver Branch'', ''Frontier Wolf'', ''The Lantern Bearers'', ''Sword At Sunset'', ''Dawn Wind'', ''Sword Song'', and ''The Shield Ring''.
** A song called "The Girl I Kissed At Clusium" is referenced in ''The Eagle of the Ninth'', ''A Circlet of Oak Leaves'', and ''Eagle's Egg''.
** Randall in ''Knight's Fee'' handles an ax implied to have belonged to Drem, the Bronze Age protagonist of ''Warrior Scarlet''.

! List of Works

!! Historical fiction
In chronological order of setting (approximate):

* '''''Shifting Sands''''': Orkney, 2000-1000 BCE. A twelve-year-old girl is promised to the tyrannical chief of her prehistoric village, who proposes to sacrifice the boy she prefers to the gods who protect the great sand dune on which the village sits.
* '''''Warrior Scarlet''''': Britain, 900 BCE. [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Drem]] must pass a [[RiteOfPassage warrior initiation ceremony]] with an [[HandicappedBadass atrophied right arm]], or be [[TheExile cast out]] of his tribe to live among [[SlaveRace the people they conquered]].
* '''''The Flowers of Adonis''''': [[AncientGreece Greece, 415-404 BCE]]. The rise and fall (and rise and fall and rise and fall) of Alkibiades, the notorious Athenian politician - and of Athens - through the eyes of his companions as he sets out on the Sicilian Expedition, reignites UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar, seduces the queen of Sparta, escapes to the Persians, is welcomed back with open arms by the Athenians, and then loses it all again.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Alkibiades; Antiochus; Timandra (loosely); Timea; Agis; Endius; Pharnobazus; Creator/{{Socrates}}; many others.
** SupportingProtagonist: At least eleven, including one from beyond the grave: the Citizen, the Soldier, the Seaman, the Dead, the Priest, the Queen, the King, the Spartan, the Rower, the Whore, the Satrap.
** ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Sympathetic character = forgives Alkibiades anything.
* '''''The Truce of the Games''''' / '''''A Crown of Wild Olive''''': Greece, 414 BCE. Amyntas, a young Athenian runner, [[NotSoDifferent befriends]] his [[WorthyOpponent Spartan competitor]] during an Olympiad in the middle of UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar.
* '''''The Changeling''''': Prehistoric Argyll. Tethra, a changeling child adopted by the chief of the Epidi, is driven out to rejoin the Little Dark People. When his father is mortally wounded, he must choose between his two tribes.
** MosesInTheBullrushes: Complete with OrphansPlotTrinket, in order to escape HumanSacrifice. He is HappilyAdopted by a MamaBear and PapaWolf.
** OfThePeople: Other Epidi contest that Tethra is not. [[spoiler: In the end, he decides he is not Of The Little Dark People.]]
** [[spoiler: UpbringingMakesTheHero: Tethra chooses the culture that raised him over his blood relations.]]
* '''''The Chief's Daughter''''': Bronze Age Wales. Nessan [[AirVentPassageway frees]] a prisoner intended for {{human sacrifice}} and [[HeroicSacrifice volunteers]] to take his place.
** TheChiefsDaughter: Averted; the protagonist ''is'' the chief's daughter. And she's ten.
* '''''Sun Horse, Moon Horse''''': 100 BCE. Lubrin Dhu, the Iceni chief's BlackSheep artist son, finds himself the spokesman of his clan when they are conquered by the Atribates. He ransoms his SlaveRace with the design and construction of a great boundary marker [[spoiler: and his own HeroicSacrifice]].
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: The Iceni's building project is the famous prehistoric chalk drawing the White Horse of Uffington.
** SolarAndLunar: The Iceni worship a moon goddess and the Atribates a sun god; the White Horse secretly symbolises both.
** {{Matriarchy}}: The patriarchal Atribates assume Lubrin is the chief of the matri''lineal'' Iceni; the rightful leaders are his sister Teleri and her husband Dara.
** {{Heterosexual Life Partner}}s: Lubrin and Dara.
** [[spoiler: HumanSacrifice: The White Horse must be dedicated with a death, and a chieftain must die for the good of his people.]]
* '''''Song For a Dark Queen''''': 20s-61 CE. Boudicca, young queen of the Iceni, eventually makes her peace with her bitterly-resented requirement of a male chieftain and a [[ArrangedMarriage political marriage]] to Prasutagus, prince of the Parisi. But when the Roman authorities threaten to confiscate her entire kingdom, she leads the British tribes [[KillEmAll in a bloody uprising]].
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Boudicca, Prasutagus, their daughters; Caratacus; Agricola and other Roman officials and officers
** AntiHero
** SupportingProtagonist: A bard with an avuncular relationship to Boudicca.
** RoaringRampageOfRevenge: In return for Roman insults, Boudicca reduced Camulodunum, Verulamium and Londinium to smoking ruins [[spoiler: before Suetonius delivered a NoHoldsBarredBeatDown.]]
* '''''The Capricorn Bracelet''''': Six short stories of a Romano-British family, linked by an heirloom military decoration, from the Boudiccan Rebellion to the end of the Roman occupation.
* '''''Eagle's Egg''''': 80-83 CE. Quintus, a standard-bearer, can't marry Cordaella without a promotion to Centurion, but it will take Agricola's three-year Caledonian campaign, a mutiny, and the battle of Mons Graupius to get it.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Agricola and Calgacus.
* '''''The Bridge Builders''''': Androphon, son of a fort commander on the western border of Roman Britain, is held hostage by Britons during a territorial dispute.
* '''''Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth''''': circa 129-131 CE. [[AnOfficerAndAGentleman Marcus]] and Esca search Caledonia for the eagle standard of the [[LostRomanLegion lost Ninth Legion]].
* '''''Outcast''''': 150s CE. Beric, a Roman {{foundling}}, is cast out of his adoptive British tribe and [[MadeASlave enslaved]] in Rome.
** HistoryMarchesOn: The Rhee Wall is no longer believed to be of Roman date.
** GalleySlave: With the protagonist in the ScaryBlackMan role, relatively speaking.
* '''''The Mark of the Horse Lord''''': 180s CE. Phaedrus, a freed [[GladiatorGames gladiator]], plays the role of [[RightfulKingReturns lost heir]] to the patriarchal Dalriads in their war of succession against the matriarchal Caledones.
** BecomingTheMask: The "mark" of the title: [[spoiler: HeroicSacrifice]].
** GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Phaedrus's rival Liathan is a BlackWidow MyBelovedSmother infanticidal leader of a ScaryAmoralReligion.
** GoingNative: Phaedrus, a half-Greek [[BornIntoSlavery born]] slave, takes to British tribal kingship LikeAFishTakesToWater.
** EvenTheGuysWantHim: Conory, the AgentPeacock of the Dalriadain.
* '''''A Circlet of Oak Leaves''''': 2nd or 3rd century CE. Aracos, a medical orderly, turns a battle against British tribesmen while disguised as a standard bearer.
* '''''The Silver Branch''''': 290s CE. [[WellDoneSonGuy Justin]] and Flavian stumble upon a conspiracy to assassinate the emperor Carausius and join LaResistance against the Saxon-allied usurper of Britain.
** JustBeforeTheEnd: Saxon invasions and the breakup of of the Roman empire are first evoked here.
* '''''Frontier Wolf''''': 340s CE. Alexios, [[EnsignNewbie a disgraced centurion]], is ReassignedToAntarctica to command the [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits irregular]] [[SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder Frontier Scouts]] in a precarious border outpost.
** GoingNative: With the ''Frontier Wolves'', not with the local Votadini. Invoked in the ritual touching of the marker stone.
** ChasedByAngryNatives: [[spoiler: Across lowland Scotland in the final act.]]
* '''''The Lantern Bearers''''': 5th century CE. Aquila deserts from the departing legions and devotes his life to holding off the Saxons from Roman Britain.
** EndOfAnAge: Opens with the final departure of Roman forces from Britain.
* '''''Sword At Sunset''''': 5th century CE. [[KingArthur Artos]] unites post-Roman Britain against the Saxons.
** AfterTheEnd
** {{Demythtification}}
* '''''Dawn Wind''''': 6th century CE. Owain, a Briton, [[MadeASlave becomes a Saxon thrall]] and is drawn into the affairs of a Saxon family.
** EndOfAnAge: Opens on the defeat of Kyndylan and British resistance to the Saxon conquest.
** AfterTheEnd: Britons turn on each other; Owain and Regina forage to survive in the abandoned city of Viroconium.
** DawnOfAnEra: The alliance of Saxons and Britons and the arrival of St. Augustine "the Dawn Wind" of Canterbury.
* '''''The Shining Company''''': 600 CE. Prosper, a Welsh shieldbearer, recounts the mustering and destruction of the Gododdin host against the Saxons of Catraeth.
** AfterTheEnd: Artos's unification of Britain is contrasted to Prosper's decentralized era.
* '''''Sword Song''''': 8th century CE. Bjarni Sigurdson, a Norwegian Viking, is exiled from his British settlement for killing the man who kicked his dog and sells his sword as a mercenary, embroiling himself in the feuds of Viking earls from Dublin to the Orkneys.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Aude the Deep-Minded, Thorstein the Red, others
* '''''Blood Feud''''': 985-990 CE. Jestyn, an English Christian, joins his Viking [[BloodBrothers blood brother]] on a pagan feud that takes them to the ByzantineEmpire.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Khan Vladimir of Kiev, Basil II
* '''''The Shield Ring''''': 1090s-1100s CE. [[{{Tomboy}} Frytha]] and [[WarriorPoet Bjorn]] defend the last hidden Norse stronghold against the Normans.
** JustBeforeTheEnd: Of Norse independence in the face of the Norman conquest.
* '''''Knight's Fee''''': 1090s-1106 CE. Randall, a half-Saxon dog-boy, is raised as a squire by the Norman lords of a feudal manor.
** DawnOfAnEra: Of a shared English nationality united against [[FrenchJerk further invasions]].
* '''''The Witch's Brat''''': 12th century CE. Lovel, an orphan with a crooked back and foot, becomes an infirmarian monk and helps found St. Bartholomew's hospital.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Rahere
* '''''Brother Dusty-Feet''''': 16th century CE. A runaway headed for Oxford joins a troupe of travelling entertainers.
* '''''The Armourer's House''''': 1634 CE. Tamsyn Caunter, who desperately wishes she could be a merchant venturer, must instead go to live with her uncle in London. She settles into the colourful life of the household and city while sharing the secret of their mutual seafaring ambition with her quiet cousin Piers.
** SliceOfLife
** DescriptionPorn
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn make a cameo appearance.
** ShowWithinAShow: Most of one chapter is an in-story telling of ''Literature/TamLin''.
* '''''The Queen Elizabeth Story''''': 16th century CE. Perdita Pettle, who can see "[[OurFairiesAreDifferent Pharisees]]", is granted her wish to see the Queen's Grace in a year and a day. The year passes through the adventures of Elizabethan country childhood.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Elizabeth I.
** SliceOfLife
** DescriptionPorn
** ShowWithinAShow: Two chapters are given over to in-story recountings of "[[KingArthur Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady]]" and ''Literature/TheChildrenOfLir''.
* '''''Lady In Waiting''''': 1566-1618 CE.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Elizabeth Throckmorton, Sir Walter Ralegh, their family; Elizabeth I; Sir Robert Cecil; Henry Stuart; many others
* '''''Simon''''': October 1640 - April 1650. Simon Carey and his HeterosexualLifePartner Amias Hannaford join the EnglishCivilWar - as cornet of Parliamentary Horse and ensign of Royalist Foot. Simon's estrangement from Amias, and his corporal [[AerithAndBob Zeal-for-the-Lord Relf]]'s desertion in a vendetta against a treacherous friend, are finally tested in the battle of Torrington.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Sir Thomas Fairfax, Col. Ireton, Maj. Disbrow, Sir Philip "Daddy" Skippon, Oliver Cromwell, Dr. David Morrison, Chaplain Joshua Sprigg, and other Parliamentarian officers and pastors; Royalist commanders
** HeterosexualLifePartner: Simon and Amias are twice likened to David and Jonathan and are symbolised by a brace of sabres.
** ContrivedCoincidence: Much of the plot depends on improbable reunions and InfallibleBabble, though admittedly it all takes place in [[ItsASmallWorldAfterAll Devon]].
* '''''The Rider of the White Horse''''': 17th century CE.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Anne Fairfax, Sir Thomas Fairfax
* '''''Bonnie Dundee''''': 1680s Scotland. Hugh Herriot becomes galloper to Claverhouse, leader of government forces against the Scottish Covenanters. When William of Orange takes the English throne, Claverhouse's men become rebels in turn.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee; other lords and officers.
* '''''Flame-Coloured Taffeta''''': 18th century. Damaris and Peter shelter a wounded Jacobite smuggler.
** HeroOfAnotherStory: The events of the novel are an episode in passing among Tom Wildgoose's adventures.
* '''''Blood and Sand''''': 19th century (Napoleonic Wars) Ottoman empire.
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Thomas Keith, Tussun Bey
!! Myths and legends:

* ''Black Ships Before Troy'': TheTrojanWar.
* ''The Wanderings of Odysseus'': ''Literature/TheOdyssey''.
* ''The Hound of Ulster'': the exploits of Cuchulainn.
* ''The High Deeds of Finn Mac Cool''
* ''Beowulf: Dragonslayer''
* ''Tristan and Iseult''
* ''The Sword and the Circle'': KingArthur
* ''The Light Beyond the Forest'': KingArthur
* ''The Road to Camlann'': KingArthur
* ''The Chronicles of RobinHood''

!! Picture books
* ''A Saxon Settler''
* ''The Roundabout Horse''
* ''A Little Dog Like You''
* ''Little Hound Found''
* ''The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup''
* ''Chess-dream in a Garden''

!!Non-fiction

* ''Blue Remembered Hills'': Autobiography of her life up to the beginning of her writing career.
* ''Rudyard Kipling'': A monograph on Kipling's works for children.
* ''Heroes and History''