English writer, Bernard Cornwell (b. 1944), was adopted as a baby, when he was 2 weeks old.

His adoptive parents, the Wiggins, belonged to a 19th century sect, the Peculiar People, who were fundamentalists.

The Wiggins adopted 5 children & Bernard knew all along he’d been adopted. When he was 7, he was told by his mother that she regretted taking him in.

Bernard Cornwell was 58 years old when he met his birth father, William Oughtred, a Canadian. Later, he met his birth mother, Dorothy Cornwell, & after his adoptive father died, he changed his surname to hers. He had long used Bernard Cornwell as a penname.

Cornwell started his working life as a rsearcher but has been writing novels since Sharpe’s Eagle was published in 1981. Apparently, he began writing as a career because he’d moved to the USA with his American wife, Judy, but was initially denied a green card & a USA work permit. Writing he could do legally without an employment visa.

Bernard Cornwell has been a prolific writer since then, publishing more than 60 novels, mostly historical fiction.