The Sunne In Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

An abbreviated version of the AN appears in the 2013 edition of Sunne, but the full version can be found in both the American and British e-book editions and on my website under The Penman Chronicles. I was also able to write a second Author’s Note in which I discussed the amazing discovery in 2012 of Richard’s lost grave. This enabled me to correct some copy-editing errors and a few of my own mistakes that came to light after Sunne’s original publication see time-traveling grey squirrel in My Medieval Mishaps.

And I am very grateful to my British publisher, Macmillan, for deciding to issue a special commemorative hardcover edition of Sunne in 2013.

Sunne was published almost four decades ago, and it means so much to me that it continues to find new readers, that Richard’s story resonates as strongly with them as it did with me. In pursuit of Richard’s ghost, I very happily stopped practicing law, moved to England to research the book, and then was fortunate enough to find publishers on both sides of the Atlantic who were willing to take on a novice writer and a thousand page manuscript about that “long-dead medieval king.” I had no idea how dramatically that decision would transform my life, setting me upon a twelve-year odyssey that would eventually lead to the publication of The Sunne in Splendour. Realizing I needed another outlet for my outrage, I decided to write a novel about Richard. They’d mumble “Richard who?”, then their eyes would glaze over and they’d find excuses to disappear. I soon realized that they did not share my indignation about the wrongs done to this long-dead medieval king. Angered by this blatant distortion of history, I began telling my friends how unfairly Richard had been maligned. I was a college student when I happened upon the story of Richard III, and the more I learned, the more convinced I became that he’d been the victim of a great injustice, transformed by the Tudors into a soulless monster in order to justify Henry Tudor’s dubious claim to the throne.

The Sunne In Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman