伯纳德·康威尔

Bernard Cornwell (born 23 February 1944) is an English author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo campaign. He is best known for his long-running series of novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written The Saxon Stories, a series of thirteen novels about the unification of England.

He has written historical novels primarily based on English history, in five series, and one series of contemporary thriller novels. A feature of his historical novels is an end note on how they match or differ from history, and what one might see at the modern sites of the events described. He wrote a nonfiction book on the battle of Waterloo, in addition to the fictional story of the famous battle in the Sharpe series. Three of the historical novel series have been adapted for television: the Sharpe television series by ITV, The Last Kingdom by the BBC/Netflix and The Winter King for MGM+. He lives in the US with his wife, alternating between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Charleston, South Carolina.

Biography

Cornwell was born in London in 1944. His father was Canadian airman William Oughtred and his mother was Englishwoman Dorothy Cornwell, a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. He was adopted and brought up in Thundersley, Essex, by the Wiggins family; they were members of the Peculiar People, a strict sect of pacifists who banned frivolity of all kinds, and even medicine up to 1930. Reacting to being raised by Christian Fundamentalists, he grew up rejecting all religions and became an atheist.

After his adoptive father died, he changed his last name by deed poll from Wiggins to Cornwell, his birth mother's maiden name. Prior to that, he had used Bernard Cornwell as a pen name. He met his father for the first time when he was 58, after telling a journalist on a book tour, "what I wanted to see in Vancouver was my real father". There he met his half-siblings, with whom he shares many traits, and learned his genealogy. He believes he is a descendant of Uhtred the Bold, upon whom he partly based the Saxon Stories book series.

Cornwell was sent to Monkton Combe School in Somerset. He read history at University College London between 1963 and 1966 and worked as a teacher after graduating. He attempted to enlist in the British armed services at least three times but was rejected on the grounds of myopia.

Following his work as a teacher, Cornwell joined the BBC's Nationwide and was later promoted to head of current affairs at BBC Northern Ireland. He then joined Thames Television as editor of Thames News.

His first marriage ended in divorce in the 1970s. He met his second wife, Judy, in 1978 in Edinburgh while he was working for BBC Northern Ireland; she was a travel agent from the US and the mother of three children from a previous marriage. He relocated to the United States in 1979 after marrying her. He was unable to get a United States Permanent Resident Card (green card), so he started writing novels, as this did not require a work permit. He later became an American citizen.

Career

As a child, Cornwell loved the novels of C. S. Forester which chronicled the adventures of fictional British naval officer Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic Wars. He was surprised to find that there were no army counterparts, so he wrote such a series himself—further motivated by the need to support himself through writing. As his chief protagonist he created a rifleman involved in most of the major battles of the Peninsular War, taking the character's name from rugby player Richard Sharp.

Cornwell originally planned to start the series with the Siege of Badajoz but decided instead to begin with a couple of "warm-up" novels. These were Sharpe's Eagle and Sharpe's Gold, both published in 1981. He went on to tell the story of Badajoz in Sharpe's Company published in 1982. He had a seven-book deal with his publisher.

Cornwell and wife Judy co-wrote a series of novels published under the pseudonym "Susannah Kells": A Crowning Mercy published in 1983, Fallen Angels in 1984, and Coat of Arms (aka The Aristocrats) in 1986. Cornwell's strict Protestant upbringing forms the background of A Crowning Mercy, which takes place during the English Civil War. He also published Redcoat in 1987, an American Revolutionary War novel set in Philadelphia during its 1777 occupation by the British.

Cornwell was approached by a production company interested in making television adaptations of the first eight books of his Sharpe series. They asked him to write a background novel to give them a starting point to the series and also requested that the story featured a substantial role for Spanish characters in order to secure co-funding from Spain. The result was Sharpe's Rifles, published in 1987 and set in the period of the English retreat at A Coruña. It resulted in a series of Sharpe television films starring Sean Bean.

This was followed by a series of modern thrillers with sailing as a background and common themes: Wildtrack published in 1988, Sea Lord (or Killer's Wake) in 1989, Crackdown in 1990, Stormchild in 1991, and the political thriller Scoundrel in 1992.

Cornwell wrote two books a year for a long time, slowing to one per year in his sixties. His idea of historical fiction is of presenting a "big story" in historical events and a "little story" in fictional plot. Patrick O'Brian, who wrote the Aubrey-Maturin series of historical adventures set in the Napoleonic era, said that there was "too much plot, not enough lifestyle" in the novels of Cornwell and C. S. Forester. Cornwell took that as a compliment and an accurate appraisal of the difference between the style of O'Brian and his own, while appreciating the association with Forester.