The Dorothy Dunnett Companion, Voume II

July 9, 2001
Its publication coinciding with Gemini, the eighth and final volume in Dunnett's House of Niccolo series, Elspeth Morrison's The Dorothy Dunnett Companion is, literally, an A-Z guide to the prolific historical novelist's extensive references in this and her other Renaissance series, "The Lymond Chronicles." Morrison, a Renaissance historian, identifies hundreds of figures, locales and episodes from familiar creatures like Homer's Cyclops to more obscure references like "Pisse-pot prophet," the title of Thomas Brian's book about Nostradamus. She also explains meanings and sources for numerous quotations in Dunnett's books, e.g. "He pincheth and spareth and pineth his life," from Thomas Tusser's 16th-century farming guide, Taken from a Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie. Dunnett herself contributes a brief foreword.