Photo: SarahSierszyn from Chatham, MA, USA / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Bernard Cornwell earns my admiration the honest way: through sheer command of his craft. Born in London in 1944, he turned the Napoleonic rifleman Richard Sharpe into a global fixture and then chronicled the unification of England across the thirteen-volume Saxon Stories, work recognised with an OBE. What impresses me is not the volume but the alchemy: he takes the dust of documented history and breathes warm, bloody human drama into it, a trick that cannot be faked with shallow research. I deeply respect any novelist who uses real events as scaffolding and keeps telling vivid stories well into a long career.
Overview
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.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Bernard Cornwell
- Name (Japanese)
- バーナード・コーンウェル
- Reading
- ばーなーど・こーんうぇる
- Born
- February 23, 1944 (age 82)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Pisces / Monkey
- Origin
- London, United Kingdom
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- writer / novelist / journalist / historian
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- University College London
Awards & achievements
- Officer of the Order of the British Empire
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | Richard Sharpe | — |
6. Links
Writer — see all → · Novelist — see all → · More people from United Kingdom →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.