Bernard Cornwell On The Hardest Book He’s Ever Written
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome back to Confessions of a Book Collector. I am honoured today to be with the master, a legend, one of our long-time supportive authors at Goldsboro. It is none other than Bernard Cornwell. Welcome, Bernard.
Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be back.
We have been friends of yours and colleagues and supporters, the team here at Goldsboro, for very many years. I think since we opened, you have been here every year to sign books, nearly every year. And we're very grateful for that. But you're here today because your new book, Sharp Storm, has just been published. And it is absolutely brilliant. And I want to talk to you about this because... You've threatened it might be the last one. I'm hoping it's not going to be. I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But you have publicly declared that. Never say never. But you have said this could be. Why did you go back to Sharp? And why particularly this period? Because you've had a struggle writing this one. Because you started it with a...
a storyline that turned into a complication. But set the scene for us, please.
Why did I go back to Sharp? I don't feel I go back to him. I mean, I've been writing Sharp for now for 40, 45 years, something like that. And he lives with me. I mean, he's in my head all the time. I hear Sean Bean's voice. Good old Yorkshireman. Yeah. And I'd always intended to write it at least one other sharp. And there are gaps in his career which I can fill, although those gaps are getting fewer and narrower. And... It's also, I'm now over 80 years old, and I thought, I deserve an easy book to write. An easy book is, you know, just Unleashing Sharp, which turned out to be one of the most difficult bloody books I've ever written. So, you know, will I go back to him? The answer is probably yes, because I can't imagine that three or four years from now, if I'm still alive, I'll think, well, let's unleash him again.
But you've set it back in 1813. And why did you go back to that particular time?
Because it was a big gap. I thought it was a big gap. It turned out it wasn't. And it was also partly because I was reading the diary of an officer who had gone through the whole thing. And He claimed that the Battle of St. Pierre was the worst battle he was in in the whole war. And that included he'd been at Albuherra, which was a ghastly business. And Sharp can't be at Albuherra. And I thought, wow, that sounds rather interesting. So that was why I thought I'll put Sharp in this dreadful battle. So this is right before Sharp's siege, right? Because this was... It's right before Sharp's siege, yes. And after Sharp's regiment.
And what was the particular point of this? Well, I know because I've read it, but do you want to tell the particular point? Because something happens in this that you wanted Sharp to go through.
Yes. I mean, the whole point of the book was the crossing of the River Adour. I mean, the circumstances are that Wellington's army, I'm not going to say trapped, but it's cornered in the bottom southwest corner of France. And he's faced with a larger army and he's faced with rivers that are going to block his advance. And I think it was in February 1814, the British army and the pull off this quite brilliant maneuver of crossing the estuary of the River Adour, which is far too wide. I think the bridge would have to be something like three quarters of a mile across in a tidal estuary with a rise and fall of tide of over 15 feet. And it was probably the most brilliant piece of military engineering of the whole Napoleonic and Revolutionary Wars.
And I thought, okay, Sharp has got to be involved in that, and it'll make a wonderful ending to the book. And so I got about two-thirds of the way through the book, and I had done endless research on this bridge. I mean, endless research.
Why did Bernard Cornwell return to writing Sharpe after decades?
And... I went to check in Sharp's Siege, which is the book that follows, just to find out whether someone was alive or not. And found out that Sharp couldn't possibly bear when the bridge was made. And my whole ending just collapsed. So I had to invent a new ending, which in the end I was rather pleased with.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:07–4:39
2
Why did Bernard Cornwell return to writing Sharpe after decades?
4:39–9:52
3
What historical event inspired the setting of Sharpe’s Storm in 1813–1814?
9:52–14:15
4
How did the River Adour crossing research upend Bernard’s planned ending?
14:15–21:59
5
How does Bernard portray Sharpe’s emotional shift as the Napoleonic Wars end?
21:59–23:49