Bernard Cornwell OBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born 23 February 1944) is an English author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of historical novel

Historical novel

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

s. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 rifleman Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe (fictional character)

Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series wherein the eponymous character was played by Sean Bean....

 which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films

Sharpe (TV series)

Sharpe is a British series of television dramas starring Sean Bean about Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe is the hero of a number of novels by Bernard Cornwell; most, though not all, of the episodes are based on the books...

.
Cornwell was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1944. His father was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 airman, and his mother was English, a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force

Women's Auxiliary Air Force

The Women's Auxiliary Air Force , whose members were invariably referred to as Waafs , was the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II, established in 1939. At its peak strength, in 1943, WAAF numbers exceeded 180,000, with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.A Women's Royal Air...

. He was adopted and brought up in Thundersley

Thundersley

Thundersley is a district in the north west of the Castle Point Borough, in south east Essex, England, about 35 miles east of London.-Toponymy:...

, Essex by the Wiggins family, who were members of the Peculiar People

Peculiar People

For the book by Rodney Clapp see: A Peculiar People."The Peculiar People", is also a Quaker novel by Jan de Hartog.The Peculiar People were originally an offshoot of the Wesleyan denomination, founded in 1838 in Rochford, Essex, by John Banyard, a farm worker's son born in 1800...

, a strict sect who were pacifists, banned frivolity of all kinds and even medicine.