But it is Beowulf's third terrible battle, against the 'death-dragon of the deep,' in which he truly meets his match.Ĭomplemented by Michael Foreman's vivid illustrations, this epic tale is skillfully spun, with both the accessibility and the integrity it takes to capture a new audience. Standing head and shoulders above his comrades, Beowulf single-handedly saves Denmark from Grendel, a 'merciless murderous ogre,' as well as from his sea-hag mother. In this retelling, British Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo breathes new vitality into the oldest English epic, originally written around 1000 A.D.-the tale of Beowulf, a Geat warrior who battles three evils so powerful that they destroy entire kingdoms. Among many sources of inspiration for my own telling of Beowulf have been versions by the following writers and poets: Seamus Heaney, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Kevin Crossley-Holland, and Michael Alexander.' -M.M.

'I am not a scholar of Old English literature, so my research for this retelling was necessarily gleaned from other retellings and translations by poets and scholars and storytellers. His life might be over, they said, but his name and his deeds would live on as long as his tale was told. 'Of all the kings that ever lived, they said, this was the gentlest and kindest to his people, the most gracious and famous the world had known. it may be an old story, yet it troubles and terrifies us now as much as it ever did, for we still fear the evil that stalks out there in the darkness and beyond.' 'Hear and listen well, and I will tell you a tale that has been told for a thousand years and more. Every year he and his family spend time in the Scilly Isles, the setting for three of his books.įrom the back cover, and also the first paragraph of the tale: He is also a father and grandfather, so children have always played a large part in his life. He was knighted in the 2018 for his services to literature and charity. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 2004.

In 2003, he was advanced to an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). In 1999 this work was publicly recognised when he and his wife were invested a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to youth. They have three farms in Devon, Wales and Gloucestershire, open to inner city school children who come to stay and work with the animals. He left teaching after ten years in order to set up 'Farms for City Children' with his wife. After a brief and unsuccessful spell in the army, he took up teaching and started to write. Born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in 1943, he was evacuated to Cumberland during the last years of the Second World War, then returned to London, moving later to Essex. He also writes his own screenplays and libretti for opera. Sir Michael Andrew Morpurgo, OBE, FRSL is the author of many books for children, five of which have been made into films.

Beowulf michael morpurgo illustrations