Dear Mr. Cornwell.

Not for the first time, and not for the last, I am reading through your much praised — much deserved — series on Mr. Sharpe. I write for a living as a newspaper reporter and perhaps that has hardened my heart, but last night I cried upon the death of Teresa. And I read and reread — and reread — and imagined the scene in which Sharpe responds to Pierre Ducos and his hand gesture.

I will never watch the series produced for TV. The images in my mind are too valuable. And fortunately, as my age advances, I will forget what happens, making the rereading that much more enjoyable.

Richard Sharpe has his place alongside James Bond and Horatio Hornblower and other books I read again and again, including “The Road” by Cormack McCarthy, “Catch 22” and “The Lord of the Rings” and anything by John Fowles, not to mention Robert Fagels’ translations of Homer.

Dave Boyce