Rosemary Sutcliff was born in Surrey, the daughter of a naval officer. At the age of two she contracted the progressively wasting Still's disease and spent most of her life in a wheelchair. Apart from reading, she made little progress at school and left at fourteen to attend art school, specializing in miniature painting. In the 1940s she exhibited her first miniature in the Royal Academy and was elected a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters just after the war. In 1950 her first children's book, The Queen's Story, was published and from then on she devoted her time to writing the children's historical novels which have made her such an esteemed and highly respected name in the field of children's literature. She received an OBE in the 1975 Birthday Honour's List and a CBE in 1992. Rosemary Sutcliff died at the age of 72 in 1992.