In the course of her long and hugely successful writing career, Dorothy Dunnett has garnered the kind of reviews publishers normally only dream about for their authors. If you look on the internet, you'll see literally hundreds of websites devoted to her and her books. There is a magazine which reaches fans all over the world, and five international gatherings in the last few years have cemented the extraordinary devotion people have for Dorothy Dunnett and her unique brand of historical fiction. In this market, only Patrick O'Brian has a larger following. Yet she's not as well known as some other historical novelists, and I can never understand why. To read Dorothy is to love her. No-one else has the ability to transport her readers so convincingly to a particular time and place. The great palaces, castles and cities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the passionate, resourceful people who loved, fought and died within them are brought to life so vividly that you can almost hear the swish of her hero Francis Lymond's sword as he fights a deadly enemy, or feel that you are present at the rout of the glittering city of Trebizond. The stories are hugely absorbing, stuffed with fascinating information, larger-than-life characters and with moments of great tragedy, comedy and action. There are two series - the six-part Lymond Chronicles, which follow the exploits of the dashing, mysterious 16th century rebel hero and Scottish aristocrat Francis Crawford of Lymond, and The House of Niccolo, eight books set in the 15th century world of trade, banking and war, about bold, skillful Nicholas vander Poele. Dorothy also wrote King Hereafter, an epic novel about the real Macbeth, and several mysteries, but it is for these two series - set in different centuries and about very different men, but which are strangely similar in many ways - that she is best known.

Dorothy Dunnett died in November 2001. Everyone who knew her admired her immensely - her talent for writing, her warm personality and her scholarship. But her work lives on, and will, I hope, continue to be discovered and enjoyed by readers for years and years to come.
Harriet Evans, Dorothy Dunnett's editor