Welcome to Issue 171 of Whispering Gallery
September 2026
A4, 48 pages, including 8 colour pages
In the second of our four new articles marking Lymond’s 500th birthday Sandra Hall examines how Dorothy Dunnett created the charisma of Francis Crawford, and how it was constructed to last across the Chronicles and The House of Niccolò.
Alongside this, we present Dunnett’s own thoughts on ‘the character of the hero’, and recalling Danny Hislop’s unrequited love, we learn of the actual Tartar girl who lived at the Tudor court.
We publish the first part of the talk given by Dr Aysu Dincer at the Summer Dunnett Day about the Lusignan dynasty, focusing on Carlotta and Zacco. Moving on from Cyprus, we follow Nicholas to Iceland – Jennifer Mercuri’s spread of photos and illustrations portray the terrain our characters traverse and the dangers they encounter.
We have the final part of our series about the early maps and sea charts used by our characters, concluding with Thorfinn’s last visit to Orkney. Staying with King Hereafter, an essay written by Matthew Farren, a recipient of the Dorothy Dunnett Centenary Award explores how the novel becomes a study of the body as archive, where scars record violence, status and memory.
Contents
FEATURES
- Summer Dunnett Day: An Appreciation
- Summer Dunnett Day: An Overview of the Talks
- ‘A Wild lot, the Lusignans’: Dynastic Struggle in 15th-Century Cyprus, part 1
- Mapping and Charting Lymond, Niccolò and Thorfinn, part 4
- ‘Lymond is Back’: The Creation of a Charismatic Hero
- To Bear in Mind: the Character of the Hero
- Lymond Birthday Postcards
- Danny Hislop and a Real Tartar Girl
- The Remembering Body in King Hereafter
REGULARS
- Picturing the Scene: Tracking Kathi and Anselm Sersanders
- A Dunnett Lexicon
- When I Met Dorothy Dunnett
- Talking Point
- The Lymond LifeLine
- That’s Relevant!
- A Close Read
SOCIETY BUSINESS
- The Chair’s Column
- Trustees’ Notice Board
- Members’ Page
- Forthcoming Events
What is Whispering Gallery?
Whispering Gallery, the Society’s quarterly magazine, brings together the many ways readers explore Dorothy Dunnett’s work. Alongside Society news, you’ll find contributions from readers and professional historians on the novels, characters, history, culture and places that inspire us, as well as fascinating material drawn from the Dorothy Dunnett Archive with the permission of the Dunnett Estate. Discover more about Whispering Gallery, explore its wealth of articles and research, and find out how to submit your own work.
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