Rosemary Sutcliff is my favorite writer of historical fiction; her books about Roman Britain are unparalleled.* However, I never read Sword at Sunset, one of her few "adult" books, mainly because it wasn't in my part of the library with her other books. The other reason is that it is about King Arthur, and about the same time I was devouring Sutcliff, I was also devouring Mary Stewart's Arthur books (The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills, the other two not yet having been published). Stewart's version of Arthur seemed so right to me that I wasn't able to stomach the thought of any other, and to this day I avoid Arthur books.
However, today I stumbled upon this interview with Sutcliff from 1986, and I may well go out looking for Sword at Sunset. The interview was one of a series by Raymond H. Thompson, gathered together as TALIESIN'S SUCCESSORS: INTERVIEWS WITH AUTHORS OF MODERN ARTHURIAN LITERATURE. Check out the table of contents: lots of good stuff besides Sutcliff.
*I've now given her a label of her very own...
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Finally read a Sutcliff book that I liked-- The Shining Company. I wanted to like them, even though all the copies in my school library were thick with dust. I just can't get students to check them out. Sigh.
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