Dear Mr. Cornwell, I suppose I can spend hours concocting a witty opening, but really, nothing says it better than, Thank You. After many, many years of holding out, I have finally taken the plunge and discovered for myself just what these Sharpe books are all about. I first encountered them at the library where I volunteer. Someone returned it, I read the jacket, it was interesting, but I was still young, in eleventh grade, really, and perhaps it’s a good thing that I waited five years until I could properly appreciate the nuances of what you have given us. Over the years, people would return even more Sharpe books to me, and I would ALMOST pick em up, but . . . Then a friend gave me The Archer’s Tale to read. It was a lone novel, two more appeared. Three’s a manageable number. I enjoyed them. They were realistic. Not only in the historical data and the scenic detail, but also in the character who did not come across as more than he was. Then a number of Sharpe movies arrived with the rotating collection, and then it was history. I saw Sharpe’s Honor, and I had to see the rest!!! But I couldn’t do that until I had read the books, before I had experienced the original intent as it was laid down in your words. I must say I am enjoying what I am experiencing. As I was thinking to myself what exactly I wanted to say in this letter, I realized that these books show me exactly the difference between Historical Fiction and Historical Romance, and I use the word in the sense that it provides a romanticized, too good to be true, version of events. A normal hero is cleverly inflated by the author through the eyes of other characters to the point where the reader falls helplessly in his thrall, whereas the Sharpe’s chronicles offer us a person who is larger than life (I mean, he climbed a chimney!), but it’s played down not out of any sense of modesty, but perhaps because that’s how conditions in the army might have dictated the outcome. It’s a valuable reality check, and it says something about the human spirit. On another note, this is something that came up when I was reading Sharpe’s Tiger. I recently finished my undergrad in Interior Design and jumped immediately into my Master’s Degree in Historic Preservation the following fall. In our first set of classes, we’re taking a Theory of Preservation course. We discuss things like original intent. Do we have the ability to replicate what previous architects have put up? Can we ever match their thought processes and produce a product worthy of their best work? Is it acceptable practice to go in and add modern technologies to buildings that have lasted 200 years and thereby interfere with their historic character in the very act of preserving them for the future? How much of the original fabric should remain? Is it good practice to integrate original fabric with newer material? These are all issues that are confronted with each project. I remember we had just finished one of these very intense class discussions, and I had gone home that night to continue my journey through Sharpe’s Tiger when I came across the one reference in your historical note where I believe the explosion of the Tippoo’s trap was pushed up by two days in order to fit it with the story line, and since then, various references to adjusting and tweaking within history to fit the story in. I thought how this brushed on the very issues we were studying in class, and I got to wondering. Do you see your novels as a way of preserving history? Conserving it for future generations? Reinterpreting it for the information and the benefit of others? I know in the ten books I have read so far, I have learned far more about the army, weaponry, battles, fighting formations, ethics, and the general history of the Peninsular Wars than I would have ever retained in a lecture hall because it was given to me in a medium I could absorb. It was just a curious thing to me that what you do for history with your novels is very similar to what I am learning to for buildings. I have one final and somewhat random request. I would like to know whether there are versions of the Sharpe books printed in Arabic. My grandfather, a military man in his own time, admires Napoleon very much, and he gathers as much information about his career as he can. While Sharpe does fight on the opposing side, your books do offer an unique view into this era in history, and had my grandfather read English, I would not have hesitated to point him Sharpe’s way. He does not, though, hence my inquiry as to the Arabic versions. I really feel he would take more out of it than someone like me who was fairly ignorant in such matters upon beginning the books. Again thank you for the books . . . and your patience. I had not meant to ramble for so long, but there is so much to say and not enough means to say it in, but you have your schedule and I have mine, and it’s back to finals for me! Take care, Dina Kanawati