Whispering Gallery, Issue 143

In this issue: The Lymond Chronicles have now been re-released in the USA under the Vintage Books imprint. Anna Kaufman, commissioning editor for the books, tells us all about the republication process and how she, a long-time Dunnett fan, came to be involved.

We review this year’s Edinburgh Dunnett Weekend, and a chapter from Checkmate is the starting point from which one of our readers attempts to unlock Jerott’s inner character. Another reader revisits Dorothy Dunnett’s plot ideas for Lymond’s backstory, discussing why the events that serve as a prelude to The Game of Kings matter.

A new series begins that looks at the development of Scotland’s royal arms over five reigns, and our analysis of the cover artwork of those early editions of The Lymond Chronicles reaches the misleading – but always entertaining – designs for the mass-market paperbacks of the 1960s and ’70s.

We draw on the NLS Archive for Dorothy Dunnett’s character study for Gabriel, examine Will Scott’s choice of reading material, and return to 1999 to speculate on the outcome of The House of Niccolò before all was revealed in Gemini.