Your Questions

Q

Mr. Cornwell, I am an undergraduate student at BYU in Utah and I'm currently working on a paper largely inspired by your Sharpe books. I'm trying to get information about the struggle of the Partisans in Spain against the French during the occupation. Are there any collections I might be able to get ahold of with military correspondence regarding Partisan actions or any other primary material? Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time. Steve Harris

Submitted September 25, 2006

A

I'd read two books - if you haven't already - Charles Esdaile's The Peninsular War (Allen lane, UK, 2002) is essential, and concentrates very heavily on the Portuguese and Spanish experiences - good bibliography too. Much older, but good (and much shorter) is Jan Read's War in the Peninsula, 1977, Faber and Faber. But get the Esdaile for sure!

Q

Thanks for your wonderful stories. I have spent many an enjoyable hour reading them. Previously you have stated that you do very little outlining with each story or series. I'm just curious as to how much "fact checking" you have to do to keep your stories internally consistent from book to book. Do you have to reread your own books to check on a particular character or event? Thanks for your reply. Jim Love

Submitted September 25, 2006

A

I should do, I really should, but can't bear doing it, so don't. I rely on a faulty memory and occasionally, reluctantly, steal a look at an old book to find a fact.

Q

Mr. Cornwell, As so many others have expressed, I absolutely love your books and have read them all. Based on some of your earlier comments (and because I had no more of your books to read) I read "Rifleman Dodd". In this story the Portuguese sometimes cut their bullets in half so as to increase the probability of hitting someone. To your knowledge was this really a common practice? And if so was it effective? Thank you for all the hours of joy and escape you have given me! Sincerely, Geoff

Submitted September 25, 2006

A

I've never heard of it being done. I suppose it's possible, but two incredibly wayward hemispheres instead of one round bullet? I wouldn't doubt Forester's research though, so perhaps they did.

Q

Just finished Sharpe's Fury, and loved it. I enjoy British history. Iteach part time at a private school in Indiana (World History) and attend graduate school at Purdue University. This past spring I took a class on the Stuart reign in England. Any chance of any books from the period after the Thomas Hookton trilogy until the Glorious Revolution? Also, what do you have in the works - probably for 2007? Thank you for your efforts. Bob Sagendorf

Mr. Cornwell, I am from Germany and I`ve now read my first books in english, because your saxons books are great. When will you write the next book after "The Lords of the North"?? Florian

I eagerly await publication of "Lords of the North," in the US. Will that be the final installment of the Saxon Series? Also, I have read your response to questions concerning the Starbuck Chronicles (and understand your situation). But I hope you pick up that thread again - those books were the first of yours I read, and I enjoyed them very much! Have only read a few Sharpes, and plan to pick them up. Thanks! Russ Hintze

Submitted September 20, 2006

A

I suppose it's a possibility, as I'm a devotee of Sam Pepys, but I don't have any plans for it.

Right now I am working on the fourth book of the Saxon series - hope to have it published in 2007.

Q

Hi. I bought harlequin last year and couldn't put it down. I went out and bought the following books straight away. I could not believe how vivid the charecters were in my imagination! With most books I've read I had a vague idea of the charecters but this was the frst time I could clearly see them. Even on the first time reading it I could see the trilogy making a great film (I even started deciding on suitable actors to play the parts!). I have started reading the books again and I am certain that these books would make a great trilogy of films. Have you thought about making them into films or a TV series? Also, is the village of Hooketon based on what would eventually be my home town of Weymouth? I can't wait to see you next novels set around the same period. keep up the excellent work. Regards Simon Barber

Submitted September 20, 2006

A

Hookton? Not really - for a start it vanishes! I always see it as a fictional village somewhere close to White Nothe, and I know a great deal of heavy yellow machinery will be needed to make a village there, but that's falling-off-a-log-easy for a novelist!

I'm happy to see my books made into films, but I'm not a filmmaker so it's up to someone else to do it.

Q

Dear Mr Cornwell, I have been reading and loving your books for over 20 years since my early teens. Loved all the Sharpe, Starbuck and Grail Quest Novels, and am about to embark on the Saxon stories (though I did struggle and ultimately give up on the Arthur Books, though I mean to revisit them at a later date). I'm curious as to what other periods you may be tempted to dabble in - as you answered one query I have read on your website (and for someone who works in I.T. can't think why its taken me so long to log onto your website for the first time) "...I think you have to be interested in a period to write about it, ...... I find the Napoleonic and early mediaeval much more appealing". I agree the likes of Conn Iggulden and Simon Scarrow have the roman world brilliantly covered, other authors have the Crimea and Naval worlds penned, but what about Victoria's Colonial campaigns? As a favourite period of mine, and a very popular period with countless others from a FACTUAL point of view, I find there is a distinct lack of fictional books on the period, be it Zulu, Sudan, Afghan or Boer War (and the rest). I'd love to see some-one of your tremendous writing talent embark upon the period. Would your comments I quoted earlier mean there's no chance of seeing you conjuring up a new Richard Sharpe and have him go galavanting off through the British Colonial era? Richard Cooper

Hello Mr. Cornwell, I have read several of your books and really enjoyed them especialy Harlequin. My question is do you have any plans to write any new novels in a perticular time era and if so which one? Joseph

Submitted September 20, 2006

A

Fraid the nineteenth century leaves me cold, at least after about 1830, so it's most unlikely.

There are other periods I want to cover, but I never say what they are . . . . .sorry!

Q

Re 'Sharpe's Fury' on PAGE 7 you speak of guineas for the ransom letters...later on page 70 and later you talk of dollars..I don't believe the dollar was coin of the realm in 1811 in Portugal..Spain..France or England. Jerome Horn

Submitted September 20, 2006

A

It was, indeed it was. Very much so. NOT the US dollar, of course!

Q

Hello Mr Cornwell, I am rereading the Pale Horseman and the Lords of the North. In the books you give hints about the longbow coming as a weapon. When did the English start using this lethal weapon and did it replace the shield wall? Also enjoy reading about drinks that are no longer around such as birch wine. Look forward to your next saxon story. Regards, Nicholas.

Submitted September 20, 2006

A

The longbow doesn't emerge until the late 13th century - a long way off, but it obviously existed in earlier periods (two were recovered from a grave in northern England dating back to 2000 BC). The accepted theory is that it was such a difficult weapon to master, and needed such unusual strength to wield, that only a very few specialists, probably hunters, used it. Then, for some reason, a craze for the weapon developed in the 13th Century and so it suddenly became an incredibly useful weapon. One or two longbows aren't much use in battle, but hundreds of them are lethal. The shield wall ended before that with the advent of the mounted man at arms - the knight.

Q

Dear Mr Cornwell, I would like to thank you for all the enjoyment i have reading your books and seeing Sean Bean thrashing about on screen as Sharpe. It was the TV series that got me hooked on your work, though to my shame i don't think i've managed to read a Sharpe novel that was dramatised in the series... but i will. I have been enthralled by your Saxon stories and look forward eagerly to the next one but since finishing Lords of The North i gave the Arthur books a bash. BRILLIANT!!! I was up till all hours on a work night no less getting to the end of Enemy of God (only the sadly departed David Gemmell's Druss has kept me up as late) and now i'm frantically trying to get hold of a copy of Excalibur. Did you find it harder or easier to write about a period in history where there is little factual background to go on like the Arthur books and have you ever considered writing further back in history/pre-history or pure fantasy? Thank you, Dave.

Submitted September 20, 2006

A

I'll never write pure fantasy, not because I dislike it, but it isn't what I'd choose to read and we write what we want to read. In some ways it's easier to write about ill-recorded periods because, obviously, there's more room to make things up. But then, in well-recorded history, you often find ready-made stories that just need shaping - so I can't say I have a preference either way. I don't have any plans to go back deep into pre-history, not at the moment, but in a few years? who knows?

Q

Have you written the book that accompanies the new Royal Mail VC Stamps? Are you a relative of Jack Cornwell as I believe he was my grandfather's cousin. Please let me know. Rgds Dominic

Submitted September 20, 2006

A

Yes I did write it and I think I may be related. I only discovered my Cornwell relatives five years ago, but my mother, before she died, told me we were related, and it makes sense, because 'Boy' Cornwell came from the same part of London as her family.