Dorothy L. Sayers
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Dorothy Leigh Sayers (Oxford, 13 June 1893 – Witham, 17 December 1957) was a renowned British author, translator, student of classical and modern languages, and Christian humanist.
Dorothy L. Sayers is perhaps best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries-a series of novels and short stories featuring an English aristocrat who solves numerous mysteries as an amateur sleuth. His love affair and ultimate marriage with Harriet Vane feature prominently throughout the series.
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History and Personal Life
Sayers was born in Oxford, where her father, the Rev. Henry Sayers, M.A., was chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford and headmaster of the Choir School. She was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, taking first-class honours in modern languages. Although women could not be granted degrees at that time, Sayers was among the first to receive a degree when the situation changed a few years later. Her personal experience of Oxford academic life is evident in Gaudy Night . Sayers worked as a teacher and later as a copywriter in an advertising agency, S.H. Benson's, in London. This gave her useful insight into the advertising industry which she used in one of her mysteries, Murder Must Advertise.
"Strictly Confidential. Particulars about Baby."
In 1922 Sayers became involved with an unemployed motor car salesman named Bill White. After a brief, intense, and mainly sexual relationship, Sayers discovered she was pregnant. White reacted negatively, storming out "in rage & misery" when Sayers admitted to being pregnant.
Fearing the effect her unmarried pregnancy would have on her parents, who were in their 70s, Sayers opted to hide herself away from friends and family. She continued to work at Benson's until the beginning of her last trimester, at which point she pleaded exhaustion and took an extended leave. She went alone to a "mother's hospital" under an assumed name and the child, John Anthony, was born January 3, 1924, at Southbourne, Hampshire. She remained with John for three weeks, nursing and caring for him.
Unable to return to her life or work with an unexplainable child, Sayers arranged for John Anthony to be raised by her cousin Ivy Shrimpton. She wrote to Ivy, telling her the sad story about "a friend" and asking for Ivy to take the child. When Ivy agreed to take John, Sayers sent her another letter that began "Strictly Confidential. Particulars about Baby." which revealed the child's parentage, swearing Shrimpton to silence.
Two years later, by which time she was already writing her detective novels, Sayers married Oswald Arthur "Mac" Fleming, a journalist whose professional name was "Atherton Fleming." They later adopted the young John, but he never lived in the Sayers household. Nor did Sayers publicly acknowledge the boy as her biological son. Given the mores of the time, perhaps this is not surprising. John Anthony Fleming died in 1984 at the age of 60.
The Lady as a Writer
After going down from Oxford, Sayers struggled to find her place in the world. She began working out the plot to her first novel sometime in 1920 – 1921. The seeds of the plot for Whose Body? can be seen in a letter Sayers wrote on January 22, 1921:
- "My detective story begins brightly, with a fat lady found dead in her bath with nothing on but her pince-nez. Now why did she wear pince-nez in her bath? If you can guess, you will be in a position to lay hands upon the murderer, but he's a very cool and cunning fellow..." (p.101, Reynolds)
Lord Peter Wimsey burst upon the world of detective fiction with an explosive "Damn!" and continued to engage the reader through the course of ten novels and two sets of short stories; the final novel ended with a very different "Oh, damn!". Sayers once commented that Lord Peter was a mixture of Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster, which is most evident in the first five novels. However, it is evident through Lord Peter's development as a round character, that he existed in Sayers' mind as a living breathing, fully human entity.
When she tired of writing pure detective stories, Sayers introduced detective novelist Harriet Vane in Strong Poison. She remarked on more than one occasion that she had developed the "husky voiced, dark-eyed" Harriet to put an end to Lord Peter via matrimony. But in the course of writing Gaudy Night, Sayers imbued Lord Peter and Harriet with so much life that she was never able to, as she put it, "see Lord Peter exit the stage."
Sayers also wrote a number of short stories about Montague Egg, a wine salesman who also solves mysteries.
Turning Heart and Hands to God's Work
Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante's Divina Commedia to be her best work. She also wrote religious essays and plays, of which The Man Born to be King may be the best known.
In the introduction to her translation of The Song of Roland Sayers expressed an outspoken feeling of attaraction and love for "(...) that new-washed world of clear sun and glittering color which we call the Middle Age (as though it were middle-aged) but which has perhaps a better right than the blown rose of the Renaissance to be called the Age of Re-birth". She praised "Roland" for being a purely Christian myth, in contrast to such epics as Beowulf where she found a strong Pagan content.
Her religious works did so well at presenting an orthodox Anglican position that in 1943 the Archbishop of Canterbury offered her a Lambeth doctorate in divinity, which she declined. In 1950, however, she accepted an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Durham.
Her essay The Lost Tools of Learning has been used by several schools in the US as a basis for a revival of classical education.
Sayers was a good friend of C. S. Lewis and several of the other Inklings. On some occasions, Sayers joined Lewis at meetings of the Socratic Club. Lewis said he read The Man Born to Be King every Easter, but he claimed to be unable to appreciate detective stories. J. R. R. Tolkien, however, read some of the Wimsey novels but scorned the later ones, such as Gaudy Night.
Criticism of Sayers
Criticism of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane
Wimsey has been criticized for being too perfect; Vane has been criticized for being a stand-in for the author. (See Mary Sue.)
Wimsey is rich, well-educated, charming, and brave, as well as an accomplished musician, an exceptional athlete, and a notable lover. His only flaws are a nervous disorder and a fear of responsibility, both originating from his service in World War I.
Vane, like Sayers, was educated at Oxford (unusual for a woman at the time) and is a mystery writer. Unlike Sayers, Vane is not also a scholarly writer.
Anti-Semitism in Sayers' Writing
The portrayal of Jews in Sayers' fictional work has been criticized for being stereotypical and some of Sayers' characters express explicitly anti-semitic views. There is no evidence, however, that Sayers endorsed anti-semitism. The characters expressing such views were often employed to demonstrate the existence of anti-semitism within the context of the work or were otherwise integral to the story.
Sayers fell deeply in love (1921-1922) with the author John Cournos (1881-1956), a Russian-born American Jew. The affair ended disastrously but became the basis for the character Harriet Vane's relationship with murder victim Boyes in Strong Poison. As a precursor to the events of the novel, Vane had agreed to live "in sin" with Boyes on the basis of his claim not to believe in marriage. Further, when Boyes had decided he wanted to marry Vane after all, she broke off the relationship on account of his hypocrisy. In fact, Cournos refused to make a commitment to marriage and children with Sayers, much to her despair.
Dorothy Sayers' letters to Cournos, continuing through 1925, are in a collection at Houghton Library, Harvard University. Sayers remains popular within academic circles, even among scholars who are authorities on issues of anti-semitism.
Sayers in work by other authors
Sayers's work was frequently parodied by her contemporaries (and sometimes by herself). A particularly interesting example is "Greedy Night" (1938) by E. C. Bentley, the author of the early modern detective novel Trent's Last Case, a work which Sayers admired.
Sayers appears, with Agatha Christie, as a title character in Dorothy and Agatha [ISBN 0-451-40314-2], a fictional murder mystery by Gaylord Larsen, in which a man is murdered in her dining room, and Sayers has to solve the crime.
Jill Paton Walsh has completed and published two additional novels about Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane: Thrones, Dominations, based on an unfinished novel; and A Presumption of Death, based on the "Wimsey Papers", letters ostensibly written by various Wimseys and published in The Spectator during World War II.
References
- Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul by Dr. Barbara Reynolds.
- Dorothy L. Sayers: a Biography by James Brabazon
- Maker and Craftsman by Alzina Stone Dale
- Illustrated Bibliography of 1st Editions
- Op. I by Dorothy Sayers (poetry): http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sayers/opi/dls-opi.html
- The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy L. Sayers: http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.htmlda:Dorothy Leigh Sayers
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