Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell, OBEis an English author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. Cornwell has written historical novels primarily of English history in five series and one series of contemporary thriller novels. A feature of his historical novels is an end note on how the novel matches or differs from history, for the re-telling, and what you might see at the modern site of...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth23 February 1944
I start early - usually by 5 am, and work through to 5 pm, with breaks for lunch, boring exercise, etc etc. But it's usually a full day.
And though I've lived in the States for over 25 years and am now an American citizen, I still hear British voices in my head.
We have a gaff-rigged topsail cutter, which sounds much grander than she really is, but she's exquisitely beautiful and shamefully slow and we spend a lot of time aboard when we can.
I still have to crack the French market, though that isn't entirely surprising considering that the Sharpe novels are endless tales of French defeat.
I'd like to cut it down to three books in two years instead of two a year - but whether that'll happen I don't know.
Mind you, even in places where I'm much better known, I walk in anonymity, mainly because folks know authors' names, but not their faces.
I'm a success inasmuch that I enjoy my life, which is an enormous blessing and that doesn't depend on commercial success (though I wouldn't be such a fool as to deny that it helps).
I have a terrific, marvellous, unbelievably helpful editor in London and she has the biggest influence, but even so we disagree as much as we agree.
I did a TV series for the British History Channel a few years ago and for a few weeks afterwards I was accosted by folk in Britain wanting to talk, which was flattering, but the memory faded and blessed anonymity returned.
One book at a time... though I'm usually doing the research for others while I'm writing, but that sort of research is fairly desultory and I like to stick to the book being written - and writing a book concentrates the mind so the research is more productive.
Judy couldn't move to Britain for family reasons, so I had to come to the States, and the U.S. government wouldn't give me a Green Card, so I airily told her I'd write a book.
Agents will read unpublished work because they might make money, and that's their job. It isn't mine.
So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like Brazil, Japan and at least a dozen other countries.
It's fun. I sit down every day and tell stories. Some folk would kill to get that chance.