"There was a smell of blood mingling with the smell of burning that still clung about scorched timber and blackened thatch, and a great wailing rose from the watching crowd. The old High Priest dipped a finger in the blood and made a sign with it on Phaedrus's forehead, above the Mark of the Horse Lord." So began the ceremony that was to make young Phaedrus, ex-slave and gladiator, Horse Lord of the Dalriadain. Phaedrus had come a long way since the fight in the arena that gained him his freedom. He had left behind his old Roman life and identity and had entered another, more primitive, world—that of the British tribes in the far north. In this world of superstition and ancient ritual, of fierce loyalties and intertribal rivalry, Phaedrus found companionship and love, and something more—a purpose and a meaning to his life as he came fully to understand the significance of the Mark of the Horse Lord. First published in 1965, The Mark of the Horse Lord, set in second-century Britain, has been acclaimed by many readers as the finest of Rosemary Sutcliff's many novels, imparting true insight into the nature of leadership, identity, heroism, loyalty, violence, and sacrifice.

Drem longs for the day he will win his Warrior Scarlet. But with a withered spear arm, how will he take part in the ritual Wolf Slaying which will prove his worth as a man of the tribe? With over forty books to her credit, Rosemary Sutcliff is now universally considered one of the finest writers of historical novels for children. Winer of the Carnegie Medal and many other honours, Rosemary was awarded a CBE in 1992 for services to children's literature.

When a Roman ship is wrecked off the coast of Britain, an infant, Beric, is the only survivor. He is rescued by a British tribe who raise him as their own until they can no longer ignore his Roman ancestry. "How Beric survived...is not only incredible but gripping, convincing fiction." --"The Horn Book"

One of Rosemary Sutcliff's acclaimed books set in Roman Britain. The Eagle of the Ninth tells the story of a young Roman officer who sets out to discover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the Ninth Legion, who marched into the mists of northern Britain and never came back. Rosemary Sutcliff spent most of her life in a wheelchair, suffering from the wasting Still's disease. She wrote her first book for children, The Queen's Story, in 1950 and went on to become a highly respected name in the field of children's literature. She received an OBE in 1975 and died at theage of 72 in 1992.

From the moment he is born, Lubrin Dhu is different and his unusual talent for drawing places him even further apart. So when his tribe is conquered and Lubrin is appointed its mouthpiece, he is treated with the utmost suspicion. What is the bargain that Lubrin has struck with the enemy lord? And why does he make a horse - a huge horse, high up on the hillside, cut out of the chalk? How can this set his people free?

The Phoenix Award of the Children's Literature Association International (ChLA), begun in 1985, is given to the author of a children's book first published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award then but is deemed worthy of special recognition for its high literary quality. This volume brings together for the first time the acceptance speeches of the award-winning writers from the first five years the award was given: Rosemary Sutcliff, Robert Burch, Leon Garfield, Erik Christian Haugaard, and Helen Cresswell, with papers about the award-winning books and the honor books by Milton Meltzer and Adrienne Richard and biographies of the writers and bibliographies of their books for children.