The Unicorn Hunt by Dorothy Dunnett

The Unicorn Hunt by Dorothy Dunnett

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents The House of Niccolo series. The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire.
Scotland, 1468: a nation at the edge of Europe, a civilization on the threshold of the Modern Age. Merchants, musicians, politicians, and pageantry fill the court of King James I. In its midst, Nicholas seeks to avenge his bride's claim that she carries the bastard of his archenemy, Simon St. Pol. When she flees before Nicholas can determine whether or not the rumored child is his own--or exists at all--Nicholas gives chase. So begins the deadly game of cat and mouse that will lead him from the infested cisterns of Cairo to the misted canals of Venice at carnival. Breathlessly paced, sparkling with wit. The Unicorn Hunt confirms Dorothy Dunnett as the genre's finest practitioner.

Dorothy Dunnett was born in the Scottish town of Dunfermline in the year 1923. Her period at Gillespie's High School for Girls coincided with that of Muriel Spark, the novelist. She worked as a publicity officer for the Civil Service from 1940 to 1955. She married Alastair Dunnett, the eventual editor of The Scotsman, in 1946. In the late 1950s, Dunnett began writing.

The Game of Kings, her first novel, was released in the United States in 1961 and the United Kingdom the following year. She co-authored another volume with her husband and wrote 22 volumes in total, including the six-part Lymond Chronicles and the eight-part Niccolo Series. Dunnett was also a skilled professional portrait painter who showed frequently at the Royal Scottish Academy and had portraits commissioned by a number of famous Scottish public personalities. She also worked as a member of the National Library of Scotland's Board of Trustees, a Trustee of the Scottish National War Monument, and the Director of the Edinburgh Book Festival.

She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and worked on various cultural committees. She was granted the Office of the British Empire in 1992 for her contributions to literature. She died at the age of 78 on November 9, 2001.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780394586281
ISBN 10	039458628X
Title	The Unicorn Hunt
Author	Dorothy Dunnett
Series	House Of Niccolo
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Knopf Publishing Group
Year published	1994-08-09
Number of pages	656
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.