reviews_and_ramblings | Dorothy Dunnett (August 25, 1923

Dorothy Dunnett OBE (née Halliday, 25 August 1923, Dunfermline, Fife – 9 November 2001) was a Scottish historical novelist. She is best known for her six-part series about Francis Crawford of Lymond, The Lymond Chronicles, which she followed with the eight-part prequel The House of Niccolò. She also wrote a novel about the real Macbeth called King Hereafter (1982), and a series of mystery novels centred around Johnson Johnson, a portrait painter/spy.

Dunnett was educated at James Gillespie's High School for Girls in Edinburgh. She started her career as a press officer in the civil service, where she met her husband.

She was a leading light in the Scottish arts world and a renaissance woman. She was a professional portrait painter and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy on many occasions. She had portraits commissioned by a number of prominent public figures in Scotland. She had a keen interest in opera, was a trustee of the National Library of Scotland, a board member of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, a trustee of the Scottish National War Memorial, and a non-executive director of Scottish Television. In 1992 she was awarded an OBE for her services to literature. Writing in The Times Literary Supplement, Alexander Fiske-Harrison reviewed her final novel in 2000, Gemini, and through that her entire oeuvre of historical fiction: "Although Dunnett’s writing style is not the neutral prose of genre fiction and it can be opaque and hard to read, especially in the early works, at times, this works with the almost melodramatic content to produce a powerful, operatic mixture... It is neither as a literary novelist nor as a historian, but as a writer of historical fiction that Dorothy Dunnett deserves recognition... The publication of Gemini completes an ambitious literary circle."

In 2001 she founded the Dorothy Dunnett Readers' Association to promote interest in the historical periods about which she wrote and communication between her readers. Dorothy Dunnett's archive was left to the National Library of Scotland and articles from it appear in Whispering Gallery, the magazine of the Dorothy Dunnett Readers' Association.

Dorothy Dunnett was married in 1946 to Sir Alastair Dunnett, editor of The Scotsman newspaper, and appears in his autobiography, Among Friends, 1984. By virtue of his knighthood in 1995, she became Lady Dunnett. She died in Edinburgh, and was survived by her sons Ninian and Mungo Dunnett.

Lymond Chronicles
1.The Game of Kings (1961)
2.Queen's Play (1964)
3.The Disorderly Knights (1966)
4.Pawn in Frankincense (1969)
5.The Ringed Castle (1971)
6.Checkmate (1975)

The House of Niccolò
1.Niccolò Rising (1986)
2.Spring of the Ram (1987)
3.Race of Scorpions (1989)
4.Scales of Gold (1991)
5.The Unicorn Hunt (1993)
6.To Lie with Lions (1995)
7.Caprice and Rondo (1997)
8.Gemini (2000)

The Johnson Johnson series
1.Dolly & the Bird of Paradise (later retitled Tropical Issue) (1983)
2.Dolly & the Singing Bird (later retitled Rum Affair) (aka The Photogenic Soprano) (1968)
3.Dolly & the Cookie Bird (later retitled Ibiza Surprise) (aka Murder in the Round) (1970)
4.Dolly & the Doctor Bird (later retitled Operation Nassau) (aka Match for a Murderer) (1971)
5.Dolly & the Starry Bird (later retitled Roman Nights) (aka Murder in Focus) (1973)
6.Dolly & the Nanny Bird (later retitled Split Code) (1976)
7.Moroccan Traffic (published in the US as Send a Fax to the Kasbah) (1991)

Dorothy Dunnett's Books on Amazon: Dorothy Dunnett

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Dunnett