Literary Birthday – 25 August – Dorothy Dunnett
Dorothy Dunnett was born on 25 August 1923 and died on 9 November 2001.
Dorothy Dunnett Quotes
- Before I write a chapter, I scan and memorise all the material I am going to use – place, people, clothes, climate, plot requirements, language and quotes. Then I put all my notes aside, let it simmer, and sit down and write the complete chapter straight through, inventing on the basis of what I’ve assimilated. Sometimes I’ll kick myself because I’ve forgotten a brilliant quotation, but it never looks right when it’s stuck in afterwards. (Dorothy Dunnett)
- For the Lymond series, I began reading in the late 1950s every poem or song I could find of the 16th century or earlier. Some of it I didn’t note down, but (fortunately, forty years later) I did make a note of striking passages that were relevant to the story I knew I was going to tell. I repeated the process before and during the Niccolo series. (Dorothy Dunnett)
- With Lymond, I wanted to show a very solitary man facing up to what was happening to him, and dealing with it, and changing under its impact. From the beginning, he appears as a courtier, a scholar, a wilful and charismatic leader of mercenaries, with formidable enemies. He is also vulnerable because of something to do with his past and his parentage, which we can only guess at, for he himself doesn’t know the truth, and doesn’t want to. As his power and influence increase, these secrets are explored one by one, until he has to confront them in the end. And as this happens, we begin to understand what moulded the dazzling character whom we met at the beginning. (Dorothy Dunnett)
- Lack of genius never held anyone back. Only time wasted on resentment and daydreaming can do that. (Queens’ Play)
- Speak, she said, as you would write: as if your words were letters of lead, graven there for all time, for which you must take the consequences. And take the consequences. (Queens’ Play)
- Facts are the soil from which the story grows. Imagination is a last resort. (A-Z Quotes)
- After I convinced them that I was a harmless novelist, I actually got them to give me a tour of the harem – which is usually off limits for tourists. (A-Z Quotes)
- You all know that each title in the Chronicles has a chess theme; that’s partly because of the overall design of the Chronicles themselves – the game of chess as an analogue of the game of life. (BrainyQuote)
- Lucent and delicate, Drama entered, mincing like a cat. (The Game of Kings)
Dorothy Dunnett was a Scottish novelist best known for her richly researched historical fiction. She began writing in the late 1950s after telling her husband that she had run out of books to read. He suggested that she write one herself, and this led to a long and successful writing career. Dunnett became best known for The Lymond Chronicles, a six-book series set in the 16th century. The novels follow the adventures of the fictional Scottish nobleman and adventurer Francis Crawford of Lymond. She later wrote The House of Niccolò an eight-book series set before The Lymond Chronicles. Dunnett also wrote King Hereafter, a novel based on Macbeth, King of Scotland, and A Dolly Mystery, a series featuring Johnson Johnson, a portrait painter and spy. Writing was not Dunnett’s only artistic career. She was a professional portrait painter whose work was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy. She also served as a trustee of the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National War Memorial, and as a director of the Edinburgh Book Festival. In 1992, Dunnett was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to literature. She was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Source for photograph: Author’s Website
by Amanda Patterson
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