Dorothy Dunnett’s Life

“My mother and father met while playing chess, so I’ve always had a fondness for the game. If it weren’t for chess I might not be here.” Dorothy Dunnett

Dorothy Halliday was born in Dunfermline, Fife, on 25 August 1923. The only daughter of a mining engineer, she grew up in the Corstorphine area of Edinburgh and was educated at James Gillespie’s School for Girls. (Another future Scottish novelist, Muriel Spark, had attended the same school a few years earlier and later drew upon it in her most famous novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.)

Dorothy Dunnett recalled her early years in a chapter contributed to A Scottish Childhood, Volume II: More Famous Scots Reminisce, compiled by Nancy E. M. Bailey and published in 1998. In it she wrote about her family life and experiences at school.

As a teenager Dorothy loved sketching and painting watercolours and dreamed of pursuing a career as an artist. The outbreak of the Second World War changed those plans. At sixteen she began her career in the Civil Service at the Scottish Office, initially as a typist, thinking that the job might leave her plenty of time to paint. During the war she went on to work as a press officer for government departments in Edinburgh, including the Board of Trade.

It was at the Scottish Office that she met Alastair Dunnett, a young journalist, playwright and adventurer who became press secretary to the Secretary of State for Scotland. The friendship begun during their professional lives continued after the war, and they married in 1946 at the Old Parish Church in Corstorphine. Dorothy and Alastair shared a deep and abiding love of Scotland and its landscapes. They travelled frequently together and later collaborated on a book about the Scottish Highlands. Dorothy recalled one particularly significant expedition:

“Considering Perthshire, it has often occurred to me that I probably owe my marriage to Rob Roy MacGregor. A day among the romantic wild hills of Balquhidder, visiting the grave of the Highland’s best-known robber baron, and thence climbing barefoot up to the great waterfall that drops like a curtain from the mountain behind, sealed the fate of a teenage romance.” The Scottish Highlands, p15

The newlyweds moved to Glasgow, where Alastair became editor of the Daily Record. They returned to Edinburgh when he was appointed editor of The Scotsman in 1956, a position he held for seventeen years. The couple had two sons, Ninian and Mungo. Alastair went on to play a prominent part in Scottish public life and was knighted in 1995 for his services to journalism and to Scotland. Dorothy later acknowledged his influence on the creation of her most famous hero, Francis Crawford of Lymond.

Artist and writer

“Versatility is one of the few human traits which are universally intolerable. You may be good at Greek and good at painting and be popular. You may be good at Greek and good at sport and be wildly popular. But try all three and you’re a mountebank. Nothing arouses suspicion quicker than genuine, all-round proficiency.” The Game of Kings

Although war had interrupted Dorothy’s original artistic ambitions, she returned to them afterwards, attending evening classes at Edinburgh College of Art. Following her marriage and move to Glasgow, she continued her studies at Glasgow School of Art and developed her work as a portrait painter and sculptor. A self portrait is in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Writing came later. Dorothy Dunnett was 38 when she was first published. After complaining to Alastair that she could find nothing she wanted to read, he suggested that she write something herself. The result was The Game of Kings, the first of the six-volume Lymond Chronicles. Set in the turbulent world of the sixteenth century, the series follows the fortunes of Francis Crawford of Lymond through Scotland, England, France, Malta, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Dunnett’s detailed historical research, complex plotting and distinctive use of language, poetry and music would become hallmarks of her fiction.

Above is a painting where her portrait painting and writing come together: her only portrait of a character from her books, Archie Abernethy. “Underneath was a fringed head, trimly bald. Below that, by some alchemy, the nut like face was pure Scots.” QP,Pt 1, ChV

The Lymond Chronicles established Dunnett as a historical novelist, but her writing was never confined to one period or genre. Her fascination with Scottish history found another expression in King Hereafter, her ambitious standalone novel exploring the historical identity of Macbeth. Dunnett spent four years researching the book, which she regarded as her masterpiece. She also created the Johnson Johnson series of contemporary mysteries, lighter in tone and centred on the enigmatic Johnson Johnson.

She later returned to the form of the extended historical sequence with the eight-volume House of Niccolò. Beginning in fifteenth-century Bruges, the novels follow Nicholas de Fleury through the worlds of Renaissance commerce, banking, politics and exploration. Like the Lymond Chronicles, the series ranges far beyond its starting point, drawing on Dunnett’s extensive historical research and her interest in the connections between people, cultures and places.

The final volume, Gemini, was published in 2000 and is her final work. By then Dunnett’s books had attracted an international readership and a remarkable community had grown around them. She was generous in her engagement with readers, answering questions with warmth and wit, although rarely by simply giving away the answers to the puzzles she had created. Instead, she might offer a hint, suggest where to look, or provide the tools that allowed readers to work things out for themselves. That year hundreds of readers travelled to Edinburgh for a three-day Dunnett gathering, followed later in the year by another large convention in Philadelphia. Dorothy Dunnett attended both, which delighted her readers and friends. These gatherings reflected not only enthusiasm for the novels themselves but the friendships, discussion, research and travel that her writing had inspired. In these events, and in Dorothy Dunnett’s active involvement lie the beginnings of the Dorothy Dunnett Society.

A life of many interests

Although history lay at the heart of much of Dunnett’s writing, her own interests and activities ranged widely. She painted and sculpted, loved music and languages, and was an enthusiastic traveller. Research for her books took her across Europe and beyond, including journeys to Flanders, Russia, Iceland, France, Malta and Turkey.

Music was particularly important to her and runs throughout her fiction, often contributing to its meaning, atmosphere and emotional intensity. Her own musical enthusiasms included a great fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan.

Dunnett also played an active role in Scottish cultural and public life. She served on the Board of Trustees of the National Library of Scotland and for 35 years was a trustee of the Scottish National War Memorial. She was a non-executive director of Scottish Television and a director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where she was also remembered as the hostess of memorable Festival parties. She became Honorary Vice-President of Scottish PEN in 1997 and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Her contribution to literature and Scottish cultural life received formal recognition over many years. In 1992 she was appointed OBE for her services to literature.

Dorothy Dunnett died on 9 November 2001 after a short illness. She was 78.

Remembering Dorothy Dunnett

In 2006 the Dorothy Dunnett Society arranged for a memorial stone to be laid in her memory in the Makars’ Court by the entrance to the Writers’ Museum at Lady Stair’s Close in Edinburgh. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Dorothy’s son, Mungo Dunnett, and his family, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, the Edinburgh Makar (Valerie Gillies), the Ross Herald (Charles Burnett), members of the Society and others. The stone contains Lady Dunnett’s coat of arms, and a short quote from Checkmate, one of her novels: “Where are the links in the chain … joining us to the past?”

Honours and Achievements

• Assistant press officer, Scottish government departments, Edinburgh, 1940-46
• Member of the Board of Trade Scottish Economics Department, Glasgow, 1946-55
• Member of the Board of Trustees of the National Library of Scotland, from 1979
• Trustee of the Scottish National War Memorial for 35 years
• Non-executive director of Scottish Television plc Glasgow, 1979-92.
• Scottish Arts Council award, 1976
• Director of the Edinburgh Book Festival from 1990, hostess of fabulous Festival parties
• Honorary Vice-President of Scottish PEN in 1997
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, 1986
• Awarded the OBE for her services to literature in 1992
• St. Andrews Presbyterian College award, Laurinburg, North Carolina, 1993