2023 marks the centenary of Scottish writer Dorothy Dunnett (OBE), best known as a writer of historical fiction. To celebrate, members of the Dorothy Dunnett Society have reflected on items in the archive.
By Heather Jacobson
The story of how Dorothy Dunnett came to writing seems apocryphal. When she complained to her husband Alastair that she'd run out of the things she liked to read, he told her to just write something herself, so she did. Her husband’s suggestion wasn’t flippant. In his memoir, he says that he knew she had the potential to be a great writer.
Indeed, this turned out to be the case, as the manuscript of her first novel, 'The Game of Kings', was snapped up for publication in the United States by Lois Dwight Cole, the editor who discovered Margaret Mitchell, and it appeared on shelves in 1961. Among the various papers held in the National Library of Scotland archives, one can see the early drafts of this debut work, in which the first lines of the novel are entirely different from the published version.
Annotated typescript from 'The Game of Kings', section titled 'Opening Gambit', and which is identical to the first page in the original bound manuscript found in Acc,12135/65. From Acc.12135/63. Copyright the Estate of Dorothy Dunnett.
The first lines of the draft shown here provide information about the relations between England and Scotland that are the background for the opening of the story. Another typescript version of this page shows Dunnett trying out a line of speech as the first sentence of the novel. It is spoken by an unnamed steward of Richard Crawford, Third Baron Culter, the brother of the novel’s protagonist.
In a speech given in 1990, Dunnett explained that the change to the novel's "rather more ponderous beginning" was prompted by Lois Cole, "who wanted a more active, adventurous opening for it." It's not clear if the version featuring the anonymous steward was an attempt at this, or if it preceded the version that Lois Cole saw. Regardless, it too was wisely abandoned, and the opening line was changed to "'Lymond is back'", as can be seen on the first page of the corrected galleys. This sentence hooks the reader's interest and introduces the hero (at least by reputation) right away.
'The Game of Kings' corrected galleys, Acc.12135/72. Copyright the Estate of Dorothy Dunnett.
The reader encounters Lymond himself within half a page now, in contrast to the original manuscript in which it takes eight pages of typescript before he appears. We are plunged straight into the action, with the hero swimming the murky waters of the Nor'Loch at night to enter Edinburgh surreptitiously through a smuggler's tunnel. Dunnett researched and wrote this new opening specially to fulfil Cole’s brief. Mungo Tennant, whose cellar Lymond breaks into, really existed, and while his house no longer stands, the lintel of his door can be seen in the National Museum of Scotland. The dynamic action continues with a hilarious scene involving an intoxicated pig and a lot of shouting. And it never really stops.
In this way Lois Cole got what she wanted, to the benefit of all readers.
Cole was Dunnett's editor for only the first two Lymond books, after which Dunnett worked with other legendary, and excellent, editors in both the UK and the US, and she had a solid and trusting relationship with each of them. One can wonder, though, whether Cole's influence, particularly regarding a novel's first lines, had a long-lasting impact on Dunnett's style, as the first lines of all her subsequent books are "active" to use the word Dunnett attributed to Cole, and some are downright unforgettable:
"She wanted Crawford of Lymond" ('Queens’ Play')
"On the day that his grannie was killed by the English, Sir William Scott the Younger of Buccleuch was at Melrose Abbey, marrying his aunt." ('The Disorderly Knights')
"Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin." ('The Ringed Castle')
By the time a reader has one or two Dunnett books under their belt, they know to fasten their seatbelts before turning the first page.
Alastair Dunnett's comment about Dorothy’s potential as a writer can be found on page. 65 of his memoir 'Among Friends' (London: Century, 1984). Dorothy Dunnett's remarks regarding 'The Game of Kings' can be found in 'The Miraculous Mirror: Talks, Interviews and Articles by Dorothy Dunnett' (Edinburgh: The Dorothy Dunnett Society, 2013), page. 7. Many thanks to Carole Richardson for pointing me to this source, among others.
Acc. 12135/63, 72