Actually, you can put the shotgun down. I think I have them both, I’ve read them both, and they’re not bad. Of course, Thrones and Dominations was started by Dorothy Sayers. If you’re willing to take my word for it and try them, send me a PM or an e-mail and I can send them to you if you’ll get them back to me eventually.
I had picked up a copy of Thrones, Dominations when it first came out, but got sidetracked by something shortly after I started reading it and can’t remember anything about it. It recently surfaced again and I’ll have to give it another try. If I like it, I’ll have to see if I can track down a copy of A Presumption of Death.
Nah. I still have a valid library card. And you have my shotgun when you pry it out, etc.
Your wish will be granted. At the risk of venturing too far into Spoilerville, she will play a major part in one of the books you have yet to read.
Oh, and a minor quibble about Murder Must Advertise: I’m pretty sure it’s set in the 1930s, not the 1920s. Not only was it written in 1933, but the staff’s speculations about a colleague’s previous occupation indicate that the Depression* was well underway.
*I believe they referred to it as “the slump,” but I don’t have my copy handy.
Yay! Which one? I won’t skip ahead, but I’ll look forward to that specific one in anticipation.
Can anyone point me to a good web site that talks more about the Bright Young Things so I can be more prepared for those scenes when I read Murder Must Advertise? Right now, everything I know about the BYT comes from seeing the movie by Stephen Fry. I did a search but only came up with movie-related pages.
I took stock of the books I have so I could put them in order. Until now, I’d just look at the Wikipedia list and choose which one was next.
So, I have:
Whose Body? (1923)
Clouds of Witness (1926)
Unnatural Death (1927)
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
Strong Poison (1931)
Five Red Herrings (1931)
Have His Carcase (1932)
Hangman’s Holiday (1933) (yay, I didn’t realize I had one of the short story collections!)
Murder Must Advertise (1933)
The Nine Tailors (1934)
Gaudy Night (1935)
Busman’s Honeymoon (1937)
And, surprised me, there was a non-Wimsey book among them:
The Documents In The Case (1930)
I just bought these from ebay and Amazon:
Lord Peter Views The Body (1928)
In the Teeth of the Evidence (1939)
Lord Peter (1972)
Thrones, Dominations (1998)
A Presumption of Death (2002)
Is there anything else that’s a Wimsey-related must-have? How about non-Wimsey Sayers?
Ha, after ignoring these books sitting there for months and months, I’m not only starting the series but assuming in advance that I’m going to become so obsessed that I’ll want to read every scrap about Wimsey that I can. It’s odd for me because I’ve never been into fictional murder mysteries. I’ve never read a word of Agatha Christie or any other murder mystery writer. True crime, oh yes (love Ann Rule), but never fictional. Still, I’m enjoying these “lesser” Wimsey books so much and everybody says the later ones are better, so I’m going for it.
They really damn well better continue to be good, though I do trust you all, because I’m holding off on a HIGHLY ANTICIPATED Sanora Babb book (Whose Names Are Unknown) that I’ve been lusting after and just received in the mail. I adore Sanora Babb and had never read this. Not that I don’t often have 2-3 or more books working at a time, but with so many Wimsey books to get through I don’t want to divide my reading time. The enforced waiting will make Sanora’s book that much sweeter.
It looks like so many books when you list them out like that, but in reality, once you finish the last one, you will be like WTF? Why aren’t there any more? It’s very maddening that she wasn’t more prolific.
If you like reading books about books, I enjoyed Conundrums for the Long Weekend: England, Dorothy L. Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey by McGregor and Lewis. The authors go through each Wimsey book and give a lot of context for the social and political references. The thing I like about it is that you can tell they are a bit of Sayers fanboys themselves, and that comes through even when they are giving examples of less successful aspects of the books. It’s critical, but you don’t get the feeling she is being trashed in any way.
You might also be interested in Sayers on Holmes, which is a slim collection of her essays on Sherlock Holmes. I believe it’s out of print, but not usually that difficult to find on ebay or one of the used book sites.
I have to confess that her theological writing is a little beyond me.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the books - they have been favourites of mine since I read *Have his Carcase * when I was 11 
You mention the affected accent in Clouds of Witness and it being dropped in other books. One of the things you’ll find as you go through the series is that both the style and Lord Peter himself change markedly (amongst other things, as I remember it, Peter grows about 4 inches :dubious: ).
As I understand it DLS wrote *Whose Body? * when she needed extra money and it was very much a conventional 1920s whodunit. Short, detective and sidekick, jigsaw of clues - even a dim policeman. Lord Peter’s outward style is - I think deliberately - modelled on Bertie Wooster - as noted, a pose so that he is underestimated by the bad guys! As she went on - and she had a secure audience - she allowed her own literary style to develop and show through.
I don’t have a copy of Clouds of Witness to hand but are you sure this was his mother, the Dowager Duchess? It sounds much more like Helen, his sister in law, the Duchess of Denver, Gerald wife. As you’ve finished this book I think I can say that the line “If only I’d been at Riddlesdale none of this would have happened.” is significant given what the Duke was actually up to in the garden at three in the morning!
The only Lord Peter stories I think you are missing are in a collection called Striding Folly which has three later short stories.
I enjoyed *Thrones, Dominations * but I have to say I wasn’t impressed with A Presumption of Death but I’m sure you’ll read them and make up your own mind. After all you’ll be desperate
The Lord Peter stories in Striding Folly (“Striding Folly”, The Haunted Policeman" and “Talboys”) are included in Lord Peter, so you don’t need to try to find a copy of it.
Hangman’s Holiday and In the Teeth of the Evidence also have between them (I think) all of her Montague Egg stories, which I also like. There is another collection, Dorothy L Sayers: The Complete Stories, but I don’t belief it has any Lord Peter stories that aren’t in the other collections.
Apologies - I didn’t realise the *Striding Folly * stories were in Lord Peter - it’s not a book I’ve seen. Was it only published in the States?
That sounds fantastic! Thank you. I’ll definitely look for it.
I’ve never read any Sherlock Holmes but I’ll keep this in mind if I decide to get more in the genre and start reading some Holmes books. Or do you think it would be interesting even to a Holmes virgin?
I’m not at all interested in anything theological, although The Mind of the Maker sounds fascinating, but I did see some others on Amazon I will definitely get, such as The Complete Stories, Are Women Human? and a Sayers biography, Her Life and Soul. Next paycheck, definitely.
Thanks for the information!
blink 
:eek: I said I “pretty much breezed though” the book and I guess I did. I certainly hiccuped somewhere. I thought that was their mother! And later, I was shocked to read that Gerald was married and had children (or at least, a son) because until then (thought I) I hadn’t read a word about them. I must have slept through an entire section where they were mentioned and the Mrs. came to Riddlesdale. I know the joy of re-reading books and catching things you didn’t catch the first time, but that was a pretty big thing to miss. How embarrassing.
On the previous page (pg 62 of my edition, Chapter III “Mudstains and Bloodstains”) the Dowager Duchess is mentioned. (The Dowager Duchess had once remarked: “Sir Impey Biggs is the handsomest man in England, and no woman will ever care twopence for him.”) and then on the next page are the passages I quoted (“I was just saying to Sir Impey,” said the Duchess and “I am doing my very best to persuade him, Duchess,” said Sir Impey,…) so naturally I assumed it was his mother. Still, it (the whole Dowager Duchess vs. the Duchess of Denver) is something I need to pay attention to the next time I re-read the book.
Thanks for the tip about Lord Peter/Striding Folly. Since I like the way she writes I’ll probably get it at some point anyway just for the other stories, unless whatever else is in there is in the, hopefully properly-named Complete Stories.
MarcusF, I can’t answer your question, but here is the Amazon US page for Lord Peter. I had bought and paid for the other books of short stories before I found Lord Peter (I hit ebay first, when I should have gone to Amazon first), but I’m not concerned. It’ll be nice to have them all in one place.
Damn - with all this discussion I’ll probably go back and start reading them all again.
I’ll certainly have a quick look at Clouds of Witness, just to check my hunch about the two Duchesses. As you go through the series you’ll get to know them both a lot better and have a good idea of whose voice DLS is using.
There has been some controversy about this and disparaging references to Jews (I think also in Unnatural Death) from people who apparently assume the views and words of a character must be those of the author :smack:
I only knew it because I had looked up Striding Follies online to see if it was something I needed to start keeping an eye out for. Unfortunately, most of my library is still packed from my last move, and now that I’m moving again it may be a while before I’m able to get them unpacked so I can check anything first hand. And now, of course, I want to re-read my Sayers collection. 
I’m almost certain I have Lord Peter, but I can’t recall if I ever got around to picking up The Complete Stories, since I might have assumed I had all the stories in my other collections.