Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell, a prolific and popular English historical novelist, was born in London in 1944. He was adopted by a family in Essex who belonged to a religious sect called the Peculiar People (and they were), but escaped to London University and later joined BBC Television where he worked for the next 10 years. He began as a researcher on the Nationwide programme and ended as Head of Current Affairs Television for the BBC in the Northern Ireland.

While working in Belfast he met Judy, a visiting American, fell in love and they married in 1980. Bernard Cornwell moved to the US, where he was refused a Green Card, so he decided to earn a living by writing, a job that did not need a permit. He wanted to write the adventures of a British soldier in the Napoleonic wars and so the Sharpe series was born. Still married to Judy, he lives in the US and continues to write about Sharpe.

Bernard Cornwell’s best known books feature the adventures of Richard Sharpe, an English soldier, and are set in the Napoleonic era. His famous titles include Sharpe’s Tiger, Sharpe’s Triumph, Sharpe’s Fortress. Some Sharpe books have even been adapted to become TV movies. In June 2006, Bernard Cornwell was awarded an OBE (Officer, Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s 80th Birthday Honours List.