Dear Mr Cornwell,

I recently happened upon your books. A few months ago I began learning Old English in my spare time. My non-spare time is spent anaesthetising people.

I went looking for fiction surrounding the Anglo-Saxon period (although Stephen Oppenheimer, author of “The origins of the British” contends that the Saxon component likely pre-dates the Roman period, using genetic mapping studies coupled with accounts by Tacitus and Caesar among other correlates, but I digress).

So I found The Saxon Stories/Warrior Chronicles. I downloaded a sample from Amazon, then purchased the 6 volume package for my Kindle. I often buy the cheaper Kindle books and then if I really like them I follow up with hard copies, which in general are rather expensive, so my children and others can enjoy them. I am only a few chapters into “The Last Kingdom” and it is fascinating. It dovetails nicely, believe it or not, with that other fictional portrayal of Ragnar Loðbruk, the History Channel’s “Vikings”.

Anyway, I noticed a typographical error, which can be remotely corrected with Kindle books and, in a rather Orwellian manner, sent out to books already purchased. In the scene in which Beocca is discussing the boy Uhtred’s writing skills with Ælfred during the negotiations at Snotingaham, he remarks that Uhtred’s thorns are sharp and his ashes are spindly, or words to that effect (it’s hard to flick back to the exact page on a Kindle) and the letter ð is shown as thorn. This is incorrect. The letter thorn is þ. ð is eth (its current name in the Icelandic alphabet, although it was called ðæt in Old English).

I am very much enjoying the story and I have even switched off the sync feature in Kindle so my wife can read it too. I will most definitely buy the set of eight, so my daughters can read them too. Thank you so much for taking he time to research and write such engaging stories about this little-known period in our people’s history (I am Australian).

Warm regards,

Michael Ayling

P.s. I can also be found on the web forum of Ða Engliscan Gesiðas as “Æðeling”, this being the original form of my surname.