Dear Mr. Cornwell,

firstly may I say how much I have enjoyed your work, in particular the Sharpe series. They have been a constant companion  throughout my teens and twenties.  So thank-you for writing such eloquent and inspiring words and for shaping my imagination and own material.

The question I have regards the violence in your novels. I aspire to be a novelist myself, however I am finding that a great deal of darkness lies within the caverns of my mind, and it greatly worries me whenever I put pen to paper. I am by nature a very sensitive and gentle man, and like you went too Monkton Combe school which has, to a degree, shaped my personality. It worries me greatly how friends and family will react to my work. How do you cope with manifesting violent scenes onto paper? For example your book on Agincourt was particularly gruesome (the detail of stabbing through the gaps in the French knights visors was harrowing).

I apologise for the rather bizarre nature of this message, but I would appreciate how you have dealt with such morbid material.

Kind regards,

Thomas.