The sight of medieval Russia’s wooden cities astonished contemporary travellers, including the men of St Mary’s. Our article ‘A Carpentry Culture’ concentrates on the dominance of wood as a building material for houses, churches and fortifications, giving readers of The Ringed Castle the background to the visual appearance of the places in the novel.
Our remarkable, long-running series on the cover art of Dunnett’s novels concludes in this issue with an overview of the foreign-language editions of The House of Niccolò. The study of codes, and the art of writing and solving them, is a theme that runs through The House of Niccolò and The Lymond Chronicles: we focus on the skills of Nicholas and Lymond in creating and deciphering hidden messages.
The possibility that Güzel may be a proponent of the Bektashi tradition is explored, a member takes a child’s perspective on reading The Lymond Chronicles, and we publish the winning entry from this year’s Short Story Competition. Read more
