Dear Mr. Cornwell

I love historical fiction and have read the likes of Steven Pressfield, Conn Iggulden, Angus Macdonald and Valerio Massimo Manfredi to name a few. Then I discovered the Arthur Series and I put those 3 books above all others. I read the Grail Quest books, majority of the Saxon books, and a few of the Sharpe books but always find myself returning to Derfel and Arthur.

Your ‘voice’ well, Derfel’s that is, in the Arthur series is possibly the most sincere and heartfelt narration I have ever read and I am an avid reader.

Derfel’s love? devotion? for his so blatantly flawed lord is so real that I always wonder how emotionally involved you were when writing the books. As I mentioned, I have read your other works and brilliant as they are can’t but help think there was something deeper when you wrote about Arthur. Or perhaps that just the sign of a remarkable writer…

Anyways, I love your books and I never write to authors but the Arthur books are special to me and will, when my daughter is old enough (alot older…) read them to her.

‘but yesterday I held the sheaf of quills up to the winter sky and for a glorious guilty moment I thought I saw his face beneath that plume.’

Well done Mr. Cornwell

Kyle van Schalkwyk