Dorothy L. Sayers Biography
English Crime Writer, Playwright, Famous for Wimsey and Vane
Dorothy L. Sayers is one of England's most famous writers of detective stories. She is best known for her fictional characters, the aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey, and Harriet Vane. She also wrote religious plays and short stories. Sayer's detective novels are now considered classics.
Early Life of Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (June 13, 1893 – December 17, 1957), born in Oxford, was the daughter of a clergyman, vicar of Bluntisham-cum-Earith, who was also a classical scholar. After graduating from Oxford University in 1915, she found few jobs open to women in which she could use her talents, including as a schoolteacher and a publisher's reader. At 30 years old, she took a job as a copywriter in an advertising agency, where she coined the slogan "It pays to advertise."
Detective Writer Sayers: Creator of Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane
Her first detective novel, Whose Body?, was published the year she joined the agency. A string of Wimsey novels followed, and in time, Sayers had made enough money to give up her other jobs. Strong Poison introduced Harriet Vane. In 1936 she and a friend wrote a play about Winsey called Busman's Honeymoon, which she later turned into a novel, in which Wimsey and Vane are married off.
Sayers' Other Writing Genres: Short Story and Religious Plays
Winsey made Sayers rich enough to do as she liked, and she stopped writing detective novels in 1937. She began writing several religious plays and a radio series, The Man Born to Be King, which attracted criticism because Jesus was one of the speaking characters. Sayers also wrote short stories with the commercial traveler Montague Egg as detective. A fine scholar, she also translated part of Dante's Inferno (1949), Purgatorio (1955) and Paradiso (completed by Barbara Reynolds in 1962.)
Well researched with clever plots and interesting backgrounds, the books of Sayers feature carefully portrayed characters. Sayers married Captain Fleming (1926), a soldier whose health had been shattered in World War I. She cared for him until his death in 1950. Sayers died of a stroke in 1957, at Witham, Essex. She was a contemporary of C.S. Lewis (also a friend) and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Books by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Whose Body?, 1923
- Clouds of Witness, 1926
- Unnatural Death, 1927
- The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, 1928
- Strong Poison, 1930
- The Documents in the Case, 1930
- Murder Must Advertise, 1933
- The Nine Tailors, 1934
- Gaudy Night, 1935
- Busman's Honeymoon, 1936
- The Zeal of Thy House, 1937
- The Man Born to Be King, 1943
Sources:
Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002
Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994
The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, edited by Ian Ousby, CUP,1995
Dorothy L. Sayers, English Crime Writer
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