The Lymond Chronicles

Fandom
Name:	The Lymond Chronicles
Abbreviation(s):	TLC (GoK, QP, TDK, PiF, TRC, CM), HoN, JJ, DD
Creator:	Dorothy Dunnett (1923-2001)
Date(s):	1961-2000
Medium:	books
Country of Origin:	UK
External Links:	Official Dorothy Dunnett Site, Random House publisher site, Dorothy Dunnett Society, Outlander Book Club Lymond discussion board, Dunnett mailing lists, Whispering Gallery magazine, Now You Have Dunnett blog, Simon Hedges' fan site, Lymond Chronicles on AO3, Lymond video book club
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The Lymond Chronicles is a series of six historical novels by Scottish author Dorothy Dunnett, set in the middle of the 16th century and describing ten eventful years in the life of Francis Crawford of Lymond - nobleman, outlaw, patriot, poet, musician, lover, leader of men and adviser to kings. They are written in a highly baroque and allusive style with wide-ranging quotations, often in foreign languages.

The series comprises The Game of Kings (1961), Queens' Play (1964), The Disorderly Knights (1966), Pawn in Frankincense (1969), The Ringed Castle (1971), and Checkmate (1975).

Dunnett is also the author of The House of Niccolo, an eight-volume prequel series; a standalone novel about the historical Macbeth called King Hereafter; and a series of contemporary mysteries featuring portrait-painter Johnson Johnson. However, these don't seem to have inspired the same level of fannish involvement as the Lymond books.

Lymond himself (along with his precursor Lord Peter Wimsey) has been influential in the portrayal of heroes in fiction, so that highly erudite, tortured, and deliberately-misunderstood male characters (whether or not they are blond) are sometimes referred to as "Lymond clones".

Fandom

"Dunnettry" is a phrase used by the Dorothy Dunnett Society to refer to the fandom.

Dorothy Dunnett fandom is largely discussion-based, focused on tracing obscure allusions, discovering more about the novels' historical and geographic context, and illuminating difficult passages and unanswered questions from the books. There are several mailing lists, the most active of which is Marzipan (originally a print zine called Marzipan and Kisses, founded in 1984 and now published as Whispering Gallery). The Game of Kings and Dunnetwork mailing lists also contain tens of thousands of posts about the series.

The Dorothy Dunnett Society holds yearly weekend gatherings in Edinburgh, and organizes occasional fan events in locations from the books. They also encourage yearly celebrations of International Dorothy Dunnett Day (IDDD).

The Outlander Book Club hosts a lively and active (as of 2020) Lymond Chronicles discussion board.

A small but passionate Lymond fandom can be found on Tumblr which refers to itself as "tinyfandom." whodunnett1526 reblogs many Lymond posts, and the Lymond Chronicles Tumblr presents beautiful images of places associated with the book series. Popular topics on Lymond tumblr include fanart, live blogging reactions to reading (and re-reading) the books, meta discussions, photo collages, fan casting, and musical playlists inspired by the books.

Before her death, Dunnett attended several conventions ("Gatherings"), some of which featured performances of Francesco y Filipa, a fan-written opera based on the Lymond Chronicles, and The Nikado, a fan-written musical based on the House of Niccolo.

Fanfiction for the Lymond Chronicles exists but is rare, and seen as rather daring due to the books' demanding style and sense of closure. They are a Yuletide fandom, and a handful of stories tends to appear every year. Ishafel has created a master list of Dunnett fanfiction and there are stories at AO3's Lymond Chronicles tag

Dunnett fandom is active on Facebook, with groups including Lymond Appreciation, Dunnett Readers, Reading Dunnett, and Dunnett Society.

There are also two Livejournal communities, lymond and reading_dunnett (for spoiler-free discussion).

Two companion volumes to Dunnett's work and a collection of relevant poetry have been published with the author's participation. An Ultimate Guide to Dorothy Dunnett's Game of Kings was published in 2013, and The Enigma of Francis Crawford in 2016.

A fandom also exists in German, which can be found at geomaler.de.

Fan Discussion and Fan Exceptions: How They Affected Dunnett's Writing

In 2023, a fan commented about how discussions in letterzines and on forums affected Dunnett's writing in her later books, and how The Lymond Chronicles (which was written pre-internet) escaped some of these influences:

There was also a real problem with her readership - who were constantly trying to outwit her by the last few Niccolo books. With big DD internet forums, an American fanzine called Marzipan & Kisses, and the UK DD Society with Whispering Gallery, the permutations of who was doing what to whom were endlessly picked apart and sometimes DD veered off when she thought the readership had got too close to her overall plan. Then the last book of the Niccolo series feels very rushed; partly because she had a lot of ends to tie, partly because there was a huge gathering in Edinburgh in 2000 with lectures, talks, trips and a special banquet at Stirling Castle and the pressure was immense to get the last book out in time, and partly because she either already feeling ill, or knew she was ill with her final illness. I was at the Edinburgh Gathering 2000 and she admitted in one of her talks that some stuff was changed through the N series, just because her readership were pressing hard on her heels and she wanted to outwit them. I think that meant for a lot of people it's a bit "Really???" when you find out the series baddie.

Her editors were also slightly in awe of her - rather in the way, perhaps, of JK Rowling's editors who just don't seem to, well, edit.

Without quite the same level of pressure placed on her with the Lymond books because it was before internet etc, etc, she was able to bring those to their perfect conclusion and if you like it (I'm not such a fan though it's an impressive work) King Hereafter is masterful.

Fan Comments

Negative

I have a friend who's been on at me for ages to read DD. I resisted (I'm not sure why) for ages and finally gave in about 2 weeks ago.

Now how the hell do I tell a good friend I loathe books she's been pressing on me for years. DD makes Marshall and Culbreathe (sp?) look restrained, with the possible exception of Dorothy Sayers, I can't think of a writer more in love with her insufferable character.

I knew I'd dislike it when Lymond had long, slender, beautiful hands described over and over again. Always a bad sign, that together with the fact that no one understands him, largely because he never explains himself, the constant (untranslated) quotations in foreign languages, and the fact that you need maps to work out where anything is (there are no maps). I could go on, but there might be fans about.

I told my husband that Lymond made my flesh crawl. I was fluorescently Lymond and his unspeakable mother turned out to be, and by the fact that we were apparently expected to *like* them.

Lymond is a tortured soul, with golden locks and beautiful hands, ridden by demons those around him can

never understand sustained only by the fanatical devotion of his men who are hardly characterised at all (unlike the nobs who are described in depth) and the knowledge that he can run mental rings around anyone with whom he comes into contact. Whenever anyone acts against him, 10 to 1 it's because he has cunningly manoevered them into doing so for his own purposes. If he's nasty to anyone, it's so he can be tortured by his conscience (and there's always a good reason anyway). Everyone (except the peasantry) talks in exactly the same voice.