Dorothy L. Sayers

by Dawson Gaillard

The creator of Lord Peter Winsey, amateur sleuth extraordinaire, is the subject of this first full-length study of her detective fiction.

Genres: Biography

123 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

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A slim and disappointingly unambitious analysis of Sayers' detective fiction. Gaillard ignores the more awkward aspects of the Wimsey books -- the alleged anti-semitism and racism, the class issues, the more scandalous elements of Sayers' biography -- to focus entirely on the Wimsey books as a series of attempts to introduce humanity into a cold and mechanical genre. Gaillard divides the Wimsey books into two camps, with the early books (Whose Body?, Clouds of Witness, Unnatural Death, and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club) placed as "puzzles" and the later books (Strong Poison, Five Red Herrings, Have His Carcase, Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon) designated as novels of manners. This division serves no useful purpose (aside from serving Gaillard's central thesis that Sayers is ever-refining her detective novels toward a holier literary goal) and is easily refutable. In particular, the so-called puzzles Unnatural Death and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club are rife with human complications and social issues. Peter spends Unnatural Death in considerable agony for his role in the book's murders, and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is all about war, veterans, and post-traumatic stress disorder in the wake of World War I. In contrast, Five Red Herrings and Have His Carcase -- both soulless and labored procedurals -- represent the low points in the Wimsey canon and hardly demonstrate an ascending path to high-brow literature. (Sayers herself said that Murder Must Advertise was her first mystery of manners.) Gaillard attempts to cram the Wimsey books into these preconceived categories without any consideration or hesitation.

For all the credit given to Sayers for her social awareness, Gaillard spends no time at all discussing whether Sayers' prejudices and elitism are representative of her society or how Sayers' adult life influenced her books. Was...Sayers' illegitimate son not widely known in 1981? I am sympathetic toward efforts to separate literary analysis from biographical gossip, but given the frequent accusation that Harriet Vane was a self-insertion, it seems positively necessary to include Sayers' own unconventional life as a basis of comparison against her strong-willed heroine. (Gaillard includes an informative sketch of Sayers' early life, but she cuts off in Sayers' early twenties.) Dawson Gaillard's Dorothy L. Sayers offers little that is interesting and much that is arguable.