Bernard Cornwell was born in London in 1944 --- a "war baby," whose father was a Canadian airman and whose mother was in Britain's Women's Auxiliary Air Force. He was adopted by a family in Essex who belonged to a religious sect called the Peculiar People (and they were), but escaped to the University of London, and after a stint as a teacher, he joined BBC Television where he worked for the next 10 years.

He began as a researcher on the "Nationwide" program and ended as Head of Current Affairs Television for the BBC in Northern Ireland. It was while working in Belfast that he met Judy, a visiting American, and fell in love. Judy was unable to move to Britain for family reasons, so Bernard went to the United States, where he was refused a green card. He decided to earn a living by writing, a job that did not need a permit from the U.S. government --- for some years he had been wanting to write the adventures of a British soldier in the Napoleonic wars --- and so the Sharpe series was born. Bernard and Judy married in 1980, are still married, and still live in the United States --- and he is still writing Sharpe.

Books by Bernard Cornwell