Dorothy Dunnett died in November 2001. She left behind this anthology, chosen by her from the hundreds of poems that she used in her series of novels known as "The Lymond Chronicles". It contains an extensive collection of Renaissance poetry, featuring work by Thomas Wyatt and King James I, extracts from the Psalms and even an anonymous poem called "Monologue of a Drunkard". As Dorothy herself writes, here in one volume is "the poetry of love, of folk-humour and ballad, the songs of Persian poets and of the troubadours, translated where need be into English".