Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul

by Barbara Reynolds

Book Overview

Mystery writer Dorothy Sayers is loved and remembered, most notably, for the creation of sleuths Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. As this biography attests, Sayers was also one of the first women... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312153538
• ISBN13: 9780312153533
• Release Date: March 1997
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Accurate Title - Her Life and Soul

The name Dorothy L. Sayers was unfamiliar to me until just a few years ago. Her mystery novels were hidden to my eyes. I knew nothing of her theological observations and writings. Her name kept coming up in discussions, so I decided to read something about this marvelous women, Dorothy L. Sayers. This biography was written lovingly by someone who admired her as a friend. The book is easy to read, loaded with lots of personal details and quotes from DLS. The writer did a great job of setting the historical and cultural background of DLS's life. Sayers' Christian faith is clearly shown, too, as well as some of her conservative political ideas. She was soundly orthodox in her theology and clearly anti-socialist. The author, Barbara Reynolds, lovingly portrayed the life and soul of this great Christian woman. It's a good read.

My New Friend Dorothy

I had barely even heard of Dorothy Sayers before reading this biography. Now I feel like I have a life long friend. From her idealic childhood and education, to her fiery personality to her insatialble intellect, I was enthralled. Her love of Wilkie Collins and Dante give a glimpse into the expanse of her mind and the breadth of topics she wrote on showed the expanse of her talent. I was especially moved by her love and committement to her country in time of war-inspiring. Her personal life was usually a shambles but so it seems to go with women of such brilliance. If you love liturature you will love this biography!

One of the most beautiful biographies I have ever read!

An amazing look at the life of this incredible Christian woman! This book dives into the depths of her mind and her life. No secret or interesting fact is spared in this delightful biography. I recommend it to anyone interested in the life of this fascinating visionary.

Anything But Whimsical

Dorothy L. Sayers did more in her life than just create the aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey. In addition to writing the Wimsey novels and short stories, she was one of the first female graduates of Oxford, a translator of Dante, a poet and a Christian apologist whose reputation at the time rivaled that of C.S. Lewis. Her longtime friend, Barbara Reynolds, draws on her memories of the woman as well as her voluminous correspondence and has written a lively account of Sayers' life.Those who admire the Wimsey novels will find their enjoyment heightened after reading this book. As I found in researching the "Annotating Dorothy L. Sayers"..., Sayers flooded her work with literary, historical and social references that represented the best of her education as well as her interests in the murderous and the macabre: Shakespeare, John Donne, Greek mythology, contemporary English music-hall acts, Gilbert & Sullivan, notorious 19th-century murders and snippets of classical Greek and Latin. To write "The Nine Tailors," which featured a church and its bell-ringers, Sayers spent two years studying campanology, and had to endure, she wrote, "incalculable hours spent in writing out sheets and sheets of changes, until I could do any method accurately in my head. Also, I had to visualize, from the pages of instructions to ringers, both what it looked like and what it felt like to handle a bell and to acquire rope-sight.'" After the novel was published, she thought she had been caught out on only three small technical errors, but did well enough to be asked to serve as vice-president of the Campanological Society of Great Britain.But the books also contain much of Sayers herself. Obviously, Sayers' alter ego was expressed in the character of Harriet Vane, the mystery writer she put on trial for murder in "Strong Poison," who was romanced by Peter in "Gaudy Night," and who married him in "Busman's Honeymoon." But Sayers also drew on her life experiences and her interests. "Gaudy Night" reflected her experiences at Oxford, her desire to live the scholarly life and the importance of intellectual achievement, while the parsonage she vividly recreated in "The Nine Tailors" was drawn from her childhood memories, and the gentle churchly Rev. Thomas Venables was modeled on her parson father.Christianity played a great role in Sayers' life from the start, and the success of the Wimsey novels enabled her to shelve the detective and turn to writing plays and books that expounded the doctrine of the Church of England in laymen's terms. In this, she was enormously successful, and even sparked a ruckus when one of her plays featured the disciples talking in modern slang, predating the uproar over "Jesus Christ Superstar" by three decades.Reynolds also tells the story of the illegitimate child Sayers bore. While it would be easy to condemn her for turning the boy over to a cousin to raise, Reynolds also made clear that Sayers did it to protect her parents, who she thou