Since the first installment of Dunnett's series was published in 1961, Francis Crawford of Lymond, the swashbuckling protagonist of the stories, has been captivating his fellow characters and readers alike. Instead of approaching the books primarily as historical fiction, Richardson, an enthusiastic admirer of the series, unravels the complexities of the main character by exploring his psychology, positioning the books within the genre of espionage, and examining Dunnett's strategy of using games in her writing. Richardson's insight and passion for his subject will inspire fans to revisit Dunnett's series.

About the Author:

Scott Richardson is a Professor of Classics in the Languages and Cultures Department at St. John's University.

Richardson was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1956. He graduated from Harvard University in 1978 with a degree in classics (summa cum laude) and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Stanford University in 1984, with a dissertation on the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Icelandic Njáls saga. He joined the faculty of St. John's University in Minnesota in the fall of 1984 and has been there ever since. His principal areas of teaching and research are ancient epic, Greek drama, medieval and modern Scandinavia, Thomas Pynchon, James Joyce, Fyodor Dostoevsky, narrative theory, and most recently Dorothy Dunnett. As a member of the languages and cultures department, he teaches Greek and Latin at all levels and an array of literature courses, most notably Great Books and seminars on Joyce and Dostoevsky. He is the author of a book, The Homeric Narrator (1990), and a number of articles on Homer, some of which involve extensive analyses of modern novels.

His fascination with Dorothy Dunnett began in 2002 with a present from a student, Dunnett's first novel, The Game of Kings, which got under his skin immediately. After reading all fifteen of her historical novels, Richardson decided that Dunnett deserved a place on the list of a hundred books his students in Great Books purchase to form the core of their high-quality personal libraries. When he assigned The Game of Kings for the first time, he looked around for scholarly work about Dunnett and found a few articles and a guide to historical and literary references, but no book-length literary studies. So he decided to write the book he wished he could have read, an analysis of Dunnett's first series, the Lymond Chronicles. He is a member of the Dorothy Dunnett Society, an impressive group of intelligent readers around the world.

Richardson lives with his wife in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and occupies his free time playing bridge, attending the theater and cinema, and traveling as often as possible to the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.