Dorothy L. Sayers
| Name: | Dorothy Leigh Sayers |
| Also Known As: | Dorothy L. Sayers |
| Occupation: | Author |
| Medium: | Books (Novels and short stories) |
| Works: | Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries |
| Official Website(s): | |
| Fan Website(s): | Sayers' Ex Libris Archives The Dorothy L. Sayers Society Sayers' Page at IMDb Sayers' Article at Wikipedia |
| On Fanlore: | Related pages |
Dorothy L. Sayers was a British novelist who lived from 1893 to 1957. Her most fannishly significant work was the Lord Peter Wimsey detective series, that sometimes its collectively called "The Corpus."
Although some of the books in the series are marred by occasional anti-Semitism, they remain appealing to fans for many reasons. These include Lord Peter's perseverance in the face of personal vulnerability (a veteran of WWI, he suffers from PTSD), the strong bond between Peter and his manservant Mervyn Bunter and the canonical romance between Peter and Harriet Vane, a conflicted yet strong female character who struggles to reconcile her desire for independence with her feelings for Lord Peter.
Wimsey Fiction from Pro Authors
Sayers herself once wrote a short piece, The Young Lord Peter Consults Sherlock Holmes[1], for "A Tribute to Sherlock Holmes on the Occasion of his 100th Birthday", a BBC radio programme broadcast on 8 January 1954 in which a very young Peter Wimsey traveled to Baker Street in order to consult Sherlock Holmes[2][1][2][3] about a lost kitten.
Marion Mainwaring's Murder in Pastiche, or Nine Detectives All at Sea (1955)[3] includes thinly disguised caricatures of nine detectives including Wimsey, Ellery Queen, Perry Mason, Mike Hammer, Nero Wolfe, etc.[4][5][6]
Laurie R. King's third Mary Russell novel, A Letter of Mary (1996), features a cameo by a young Lord Peter Wimsey (named only as "Peter", and referenced elsewhere in the series as the "second son of a Duke"). However, King was forbidden from using the character again by the Sayers estate.[7]
In 1998, mystery author Jill Paton Walsh completed Sayers' unfinished Wimsey novel Thrones, Dominations, following it up with A Presumption of Death and The Attenbury Emeralds. Critical reaction was mixed.[8]
Author Stephen King once began a Peter Wimsey story in which Harriet had been killed during the Blitz; although it was never finished, or published, copies of the story fragment were apparently in circulation in the Stephen King fandom for some time.[9]. It was very, very sad. Reaction from one section of Livejournal fandom was basically, "YOU CAN'T DO THAT."[10]
Archives, Communities & Resources
Online editions
- Works by Dorothy L. Sayers in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
- Works by Dorothy L. Sayers at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Dorothy L. Sayers at Internet Archive
- Works by Dorothy L. Sayers at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by Dorothy L. Sayers at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by Dorothy L. Sayers at Open Library
Archives
- Dorothy Sayers archives at the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College
- Dorothy L. Sayers letters and poems at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
- "Archival material relating to Dorothy L. Sayers" UK National Archives ID
References
- ^ "Sayers on Holmes — Essays and Fiction on Sherlock Holmes". The Mythopoeic Society. 2001. Archived from the original on 2016-07-11.
- ^ Irene Henry (2001). "Sayers on Holmes, Essays and Fiction on Sherlock Holmes". A Green Man Review. Archived from the original on 2021-04-19.
- ^ John W. Kennedy (2005-08-05). "Re: Sherlock Holmes / Doyle question". rec.arts.books at newsgroups.derkeiler.com. Archived from the original on 2012-08-18. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- ^ Jon (2007-03-20). "Mainwaring, Marion - Murder in Pastiche (1954) AKA Nine Detectives All At Sea". gadetection. Archived from the original on 2021-01-26.
- ^ "A Gathering of Gumshoes: Murder in Pastiche (1954), by Marion Mainwaring Part One". The Passing Tramp. 2017-06-27. Archived from the original on 2017-10-27.
- ^ Edwards, Martin. "Parody and Pastiche". Martin Edwards Books. Archived from the original on 2021-10-27.
- ^ Liz Barr and Rebecca Anderson (2007-03-03). "RUSS-L Frequently Asked Questions". The Mary Russell Holmes. Archived from the original on 2008-07-03. Retrieved 2008-12-03.
- ^ "Thrones, Dominations". Wikipedia. 2012-07-26. Archived from the original on 2012-08-28. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- ^ Wood, Rocky; Rawsthorne, David; Blackburn, Norma. "Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished". Cemetery Dance Publications. Archived from the original on 2006-05-10. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- ^ liviapenn (2007-04-12). "Oh, you guys..." LiveJournal. Archived from the original on 2012-11-29. Retrieved 2008-11-19.