The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 2, 1937-1943: From Novelist to Playwright

The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers #2

by Dorothy L. Sayers, Barbara Reynolds

Spanning the years 1937-1943, the second volume of The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, edited by Barbara Reynolds, covers the seven years in which the greatest detective novelist of the golden age turns away from mystery writing to become a playwright and, in turn, a controversial figure. As such, it bears little mention of Lord Peter but further illumination into the inspirations of his creator. There is some coverage of the Wimsey family papers and the play version of Busman's Honeymoon, but the bulk of this second volume deals with the groundbreaking set of religious plays that Sayers wrote for the BBC, including a fascinating contretemps over the BBC's attempts to edit her. This volume provides considerable insight into a formidable intellect and a sparkling writer.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Autobiography, Mystery

450 pages, Hardcover

First published April 2, 1988

About the author

The detective stories of well-known British writer Dorothy Leigh Sayers mostly feature the amateur investigator Lord Peter Wimsey; she also translated the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri.

This renowned author and Christian humanist studied classical and modern languages.

Her best known mysteries, a series of short novels, set between World War I and World War II, feature an English aristocrat and amateur sleuth. She is also known for her plays and essays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy...

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dorothy L Sayers was a remarkable woman. While she is best known as the creator of the aristocratic Golden Age literary detective Lord Peter Wimsey, Sayers had an interesting and varied life both before and after she wrote the Wimsey novels. The daughter of a country clergyman, she was in the first group of women to be awarded a degree from Oxford University in 1920. (Sayers completed her studies at Somerville College in 1915, at a time when women were not awarded degrees). She worked as a translator, as a teacher and in publishing. During the 1920s, before she became a full-time writer, Sayers was an advertising copywriter with a prominent London advertising agency.

In the late 1930s, Sayers was approached to write a religious play for the Canterbury Festival. She was later commissioned to write a series of plays dealing with the life of Christ for BBC Radio. This, the second volume of Sayers' letters, covers this particular period of her life. It includes letters to friends, to her son John Anthony, to fans and critics, to friends and to various religious figures. Sayers was an excellent letter writer: her letters show her to be intellectually tough, thoughtful, witty and no nonsense. Many of the letters deal with the creative process and and with artistic integrity, which were important factors in Sayers' writing.

While I loved the first volume of Sayers' letters, this volume I found less interesting overall, largely because I don't share Sayers' interest in Christian theology. That said, there was enough of interest in the letters to keep me reading. The committed Sayers fan will probably enjoy this book. Others can safely skip it. Overall, 3.5 stars.

[Chrystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This second volume of letters follows Sayers's career from popular detective novelist, to playwright and Christian Thinker. Her speeches, radio plays, and essays put her in the public eye where she was both lauded and criticized in turn. The volume ends with her declining a Doctorate in Divinity bestowed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Incredible woman, exceptional human being. I am desperate to obtain the next two volumes, no luck thus far.

Sayers's astonishing intellect and razor-sharp wit places her squarely among my heroes of the Christian faith.

[Sarah Seele]

Read this one because it happened to be the volume I was able to get my hands on. Will definitely be reading volumes one & three if I manage to find them. I found this addictive, actually, more than any fiction I’ve read in quite a while. I love how Sayers’s brain works, and she has (in her trenchantly funny phrasing but mostly her passionate commitment to intellectual integrity and a Christian worldview that is integrated with every aspect of life) blessed me very much, as I’ve gotten to know her over the past half-decade or so.

How much I wish one could have friendships across time as easily as across counties or even oceans!


especial highlights:
-her absolutely savage response to the teetotaller's letter (not that I support being rude to teetotallers--they have their convictions for a reason, and some of my family believes that way! but it was so, so funny)
-her reluctant but (at bottom) charitable correspondence with the militant atheist who was like "how can an intelligent person like you actually believe all this rot about miracles and Christ's divinity and whatnot??", including when she complained to C. S. Lewis, Screwtape-style, about it in a separate letter
-her conclusions about the actual (quite limited) value of higher education (similar to my own--and apparently we also share the belief that if we said it out loud all the intelligent people would pillory us!)
-her absolutely ferocious belief in the importance of vocation
-as man is both Vir and Homo, so woman is also both Femina and Homo--NOT JUST FEMINA!!!!!! (obviously society has come a long way since the 1940s but her point remains so valid to so much of the discourse I hear on women vs men)
-glimpses of WW2 through the eyes of someone just kinda, casually living through it (the historian in me is very pleased)

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

One needs to be interested in the minutiae of 'catholic' theology to appreciate this book. I was surprised that so few of her letters dealt with the war except for a couple about Winston Churchill and P.G. Wodehouse. Is this because she wrote none, or because the editor felt that they were not germane to the development of the author as a theologian/playwright?

[Linnea · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are a wonderful glimpse into Sayers' life and mind, as well as much of her writing. I didn't want them to end!