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Lord Peter: The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories

Dorothy L. Sayers,

James Sandoe (Introduction)

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Aug 19, 2022 Werner rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-crime-fiction, short-stories, classics

Besides her 11 novels featuring her aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, "Golden Age" mystery-genre luminary Dorothy Sayers wrote a total of 21 short stories featuring this popular series character, most of them published in four different collections during her lifetime. Editor James Sandoe (whose background isn't described here) has collected all 21 of these into a single volume, including the last one, "Talboys," which though written in 1942 was published here for the first time. He Besides her 11 novels featuring her aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, "Golden Age" mystery-genre luminary Dorothy Sayers wrote a total of 21 short stories featuring this popular series character, most of them published in four different collections during her lifetime. Editor James Sandoe (whose background isn't described here) has collected all 21 of these into a single volume, including the last one, "Talboys," which though written in 1942 was published here for the first time. He supplies a short Introduction (a bit over five pages long) which gives a basic description of the Wimsey novels in chronological order, plus a brief description of Sayers' writing activity after she moved on from the series. This is my first book-length read in the Wimsey canon; but I encountered the character for the first time in my high school days in "The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head" (though I don't remember the name of the anthology I read it in), which I still consider one of the best "find the hidden treasure" mysteries that I've ever read. It took me quite a while to read more Sayers (I did also read "The Queen's Square" earlier this year in English Country House Murders, and commented on it favorably in my review of that book); but I always intended to, and am glad to have finally gotten around to it!

Over the course of a fairly extensive corpus, Lord Peter's character was developed by the author in some detail. Born in 1890 (the books and stories were written from 1921-1942, so the character ages in "real time"), he's the younger son of a deceased duke, and quite wealthy. (Strictly speaking, he's not a peer, since his older brother has the dukedom; but as my Goodreads friend Bionic Jean helpfully explained, younger children of a Duke or Marquess are allowed to be addressed as "Lord" or "Lady" as a courtesy title.) A graduate of Oxford, he's well-educated and urbane, with extensive reading under his belt (he likes to collect old books) and quite a store of eclectic knowledge. He's also in good physical shape (he served as an officer in the Great War), and handy with a pistol if he has to be --though, in the British mystery tradition, usually much less violent than its American cousin, he very seldom has to demonstrate that. Like most members of his class, he doesn't need to work for a living (which leaves him free to indulge his liking for exploring intriguing mysteries, criminal and otherwise --"I'm interested in queer things," he observes at one point). But he's no snob; he's courteous and generous to all, including his multi-talented sidekick and valet, Mervyn Bunter. Not imposing physically, and needing a monocle for a weak eye, he has a rather boyish, ingenuous expression that often leads strangers to believe he's not very smart (and he shrewdly uses that impression to his advantage).

Sayers' writing style is eminently readable and not at all stilted, but it is literate and stylish, with a good vocabulary and an affinity for the occasional literary allusion (and at times also for untranslated bits of French, Latin or Greek text). She has a dry, witty and very British style of humor (and endows Lord Peter with the same). Herself a committed Christian, she created a non-Christian protagonist for these stories, and religious themes aren't noticeable here; "my religious beliefs are a little ill-defined," our hero comments in one story. Nonetheless, he firmly believes that "some power beyond our puny human wills arranges the affairs of men." (And the frequent felicitous role of "coincidence" in these stories, which I readily ascribed to Divine providence, would give him good grounds for that view.)

The stories themselves (19 of them new to me!) are arranged chronologically. Counting "The Queen's Square," nine of them involve murder. Jewel thefts figure in several other stories; "The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head" is far from the only hidden/missing treasure puzzle here, and other adventures are sui generis. (Not all of them involve actual crimes.) All of the mysteries are well-constructed and challenging, a very diverse mix of premises and situations, every one of them original and distinctive. Surprises galore can be expected in the ingenious denouements. In some cases, the solutions turn on little-known facts of medicine or genetics (I definitely learned things here that I didn't know). Lord Peter is observant, deductive-minded, and a cynical but compassionate student of human psychology and behavior; his crime-solving abilities rest on those foundations. England is the usual setting for the tales, but our protagonist's travels also take him to other parts of Europe, and to America. Concealed identity will sometimes play a significant role.

A short review can't offer comments on all of the stories, so brief comments on a few of the more notable will have to suffice. The last two are set after Lord Peter's marriage, "The Haunted Policeman" on the occasion of the birth of his first son, and "Talboys" years later, when he and his wife are rearing three boys. Although the former story is marred by the title character's repeated use of the n-word for blacks and expression of hatred for them (there's no indication that this represents Lord Peter's or Sayers' attitude, however), "Talboys" was one of my favorites here. Two other personal favorites were "The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention" and "The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey," both with their pseudo-supernatural elements and evocation of spooky atmosphere. In "The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will," the crossword-puzzle element (the solution to which is provided on a later page) was too complicated for me, but I liked the story nonetheless. Perhaps the most thought-provoking was "The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face" (which is also the only story that, IMO, has a logical slip).

Sandoe concludes the book with two bonus features: the 1968 article "Sayers, Lord Peter, and God" by academic literary scholar Carolyn Heilbrun, from The American Scholar, and a 1942 parody of the Wimsey canon by E. C. Bentley, "Greedy Night, A Parody." The latter references two of the Wimsey novels, Gaudy Night and Strong Poison and features Lord Peter and Bunter with exaggerated eccentricities and a similarly-exaggerated imitation of some features of Sayers' prose. It came across to me as strained, I guessed the "surprise" ending as soon as the body was introduced, and I thought the repeated "Heil Hitler!" interjections Bentley put in the protagonist's mouth when he was talking to the German ambassador were in poor taste. (Neither the stories nor Sayers' life suggest any sympathy with Nazism on her part or Lord Peter's.) Heilbrun's article (a bit over 15 pages long), though, is a perceptive and sympathetic bio-critical survey of Sayer's writing life, with particular emphasis on the Wimsey canon. It's jargon-free, insightful (and educational to me!), and well worth a read.

There are no real content issues here. Bad language is minimal; and though the novels apparently indicate that, in his single days, Lord Peter was something of a ladies' man and not always strictly chaste, there's no suggestion of that in these stories. I'd heartily recommend the collection to anyone who reads well and appreciates short fiction in the traditional mystery genre. It's definitely made me even more interested in dipping into the Wimsey novels! ...more

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