Rosemary Sutcliff was born on December 14, 1920, in West Clanden, Surrey, England. Because Sutcliff s father was an officer in the Royal Navy, the family moved frequently during her early life. When he retired in 1930, they settled in Devonshire, where Sutcliff was labeled "educationally subnormal." Her subsequent success demonstrates that, on the contrary, she was not subnormal, but rather an exceptionally gifted painter and writer. Today, several of Sutcliff's miniatures hang in London's Royal Academy of Art.

By the early 1950s Sutcliff gave up painting and devoted herself entirely to writing. Intrigued by a revival of interest in historical fiction, she created a trilogy of novels—The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, and The Lantern Bearers—that recounts the history of a fictional family during the Roman occupation of the British Isles. The last book in the series, The Lantern Bearers...