Rereading Rosemary Sutcliff: A Shoutout for “Frontier Wolf”

1984 cover

I grew up reading and rereading Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novels, “probably” the most famous of which are two of her Roman-Britain novels, The Eagle of the Ninth, which I believe has been dramatised twice, and The Lantern Bearers, which won the Carnegie Medal in 1959.

Sometimes, the books you’ve loved as a junior or young adult reader don’t withstand a more adult scrutiny, but I’ve found Rosemary Sutcliff’s do stand the test of time. I believe this is because her historical re...