![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/55\/2011\/02\/dorothy-sayers2.jpg\")
<\/a> Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) was one of the most important Christian writers of the twentieth century, and behind only\u00a0 Flannery O\u2019Conner as a Christian woman writing fiction.\u00a0 At the peak of her career, she rivaled any of her Oxfordian Christian contemporaries called the Inklings (Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams, etc.).\u00a0 There must have been something in the water there in mid-century in Oxford as we have seldom seen such a large group of gifted Christian writers in one place at one period of time in the last five centuries.<\/p>\nSayers, an only child, was born on 13 June 1893 at the Head Master\u2019s House Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford where her father, the Rev. Henry Sayers, M.A., was chaplain and headmaster of the Choir School.<\/p>\n
In 1912, she won a scholarship to Sommerville College Oxford\u00a0 and studied modern languages and medieval literature. She finished with first-class honours in 1915.\u00a0 Although women could not be awarded degrees at that time, Sayers was among the first to receive a degree when the position changed a few years later, and in 1920 she graduated with an MA. Her personal experience of Oxford academic life may be glimpsed in her novel\u00a0 Gaudy Nigh<\/em>t. <\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Sayers was a good friend of C.S. Lewis and several of the other\u00a0 Inklings. On some occasions, Sayers joined Lewis at meetings of the Socratic Club. Lewis said he read The Man Born to be King<\/a><\/em> every Easter (her famous radio play), but he claimed to be unable to appreciate detective stories. J. R. R. Tolkien<\/a> read some of the Wimsey novels but scorned the later ones, such as\u00a0 Gaudy Night<\/em>. Sayers began working out the plot of her first novel some time in 1920\u201321. The seeds of the plot for Whose Body?<\/a><\/em> can be seen in a letter Sayers wrote on 22 January 1921:<\/p>\n Lord Peter Wimsey<\/a> burst upon the world of detective fiction with an explosive \u201cOh, damn!\u201d and continued to engage readers in ten novels and two sets of short stories; the final novel ended with a very different \u201cOh, damn!\u201d. Sayers once commented that Lord Peter was a mixture of Fred Astaire<\/a> and Bertie Wooster<\/a>, which is most evident in the first five novels. However, it is evident through Lord Peter\u2019s development as a rounded character that he existed in Sayers\u2019 mind as a living, breathing, fully human being. Sayers introduced detective novelist Harriet Vane<\/a> in Strong Poison<\/a><\/em>. Sayers remarked more than once that she had developed the \u201chusky voiced, dark-eyed\u201d Harriet to put an end to Lord Peter via matrimony. But in the course of writing Gaudy Night<\/a><\/em>, Sayers imbued Lord Peter and Harriet with so much life that she was never able, as she put it, to \u201csee Lord Peter exit the stage\u201d.<\/p>\n Sayers did not content herself with writing pure detective stories; she explored the difficulties of World War I veterans in The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club<\/a><\/em>, discussed the ethics of advertising in Murder Must Advertise<\/a><\/em>, and advocated women\u2019s education (then a controversial subject) and role in society in Gaudy Night<\/a><\/em>. In Gaudy Night<\/em>, Miss Barton writes a book attacking the Nazi doctrine of Kinder, Kirche, K\u00fcche<\/a>, which restricted women\u2019s roles to family activities, and in many ways the whole of Gaudy Night<\/a><\/em> can be read as an attack on Nazi social doctrine. The book has been described as \u201cthe first feminist mystery novel.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Sayers\u2019 Christian and academic interests also shine through in her detective stories. In The Nine Tailors<\/a><\/em>, one of her most well-known detective novels, the plot unfolds largely in and around an old church dating back to the Middle Ages, and the writer\u2019s familiarity with and affection for such a milieu is very evident. Change ringing<\/a> of bells also forms an important part of the novel. In Have His Carcase<\/a><\/em>, the Playfair cipher<\/a> and the principles of cryptanalysis<\/a> are explained. Her short story Absolutely Elsewhere<\/em> refers to the fact that (in the language of modern physics) the only perfect alibi for a crime trhis to be outside its light cone<\/a>, while The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager\u2019s Will<\/em> contains a literary crossword puzzle.\u00a0\u00a0 (this summary courtesy of Wiki).<\/p>\n Sayers went on to write notable Christian works such as The Mind of the Maker,<\/em> and\u00a0 Creed or Chaos, <\/em>and a famous translation from the Italian of\u00a0 Dante\u2019s\u00a0 Divine Comedy, <\/em>the third part of which she never quite finished before she died.\u00a0\u00a0 Having read almost everything she wrote,\u00a0 I can say that she is undeservedly the most neglected of the gifted Christian writers of the whole \u2018Inkling period\u2019.\u00a0 Here is the list of her novels and when they were written\u2026..<\/p>\n This post is focusing on the now available two sets of DVDs providing us with the BBC TV films of several, but sadly not all,\u00a0 of her novels.\u00a0 You will discover that all of the proper novels except the first and the last were in fact filmed in the two different BBC productions.\u00a0 More\u2019s the pity in regard to the last especially when Wimsey and\u00a0 Vane actually tie the knot, so to speak.<\/p>\n The first BBC series of films were made in 1973-75.\u00a0 They star Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter and Glyn Houston as a warm and congenial Bunter, his war companion and later his man servant.\u00a0 These films are all feature length films, none shorter than 90 minutes and some longer, and it is a pity they have not been remastered, as they are very good.\u00a0 Especially the outdoor scenes suffer some from this earlier age of films, but both Set One and Set Two are excellent, full of repartee and good fun from the period of the 1920s and 1930s, and providing interesting social commentary on that turbulent period in England. \u00a0 If you liked \u2018the King\u2019s Speech\u2019 you will like this mysteries as well, dealing with the same period in English life. \u00a0\u00a0 Lord Peter is of course that most unusual of detectives\u2014 an aristocratic one, with a monocle no less.\u00a0\u00a0 I especially loved both the novel\u00a0 The Nine Tailors,<\/em> and the film of it.<\/p>\n The Second BBC series was filmed in 1987ff.\u00a0 and involves just three novels, the ones with Harriet Vane in them\u2013 Strong Poison, Have his Carcase, and Gaudy Night.<\/em> Harriet,\u00a0 whom Wimsey falls in love with, and basically rescues from the hangman\u2019s noose, is a modern woman, and of course there was much speculation about her reflecting Sayer\u2019s own character, who was indeed a very progressive woman for her day.\u00a0 In this series of films\u00a0 Edward Petherbridge plays Lord Peter, with a bit less jolly and more reserved and foppish approach to the character, and on the whole I must say I prefer Carmichael, though Petherbridge looks the part, and is good in dialogue especially.\u00a0 Bunter in these films is less in evidence, in part because the second main character is Harriet Vane, played by Harriet Walter who is quite good as a conflicted and bright woman who is a novelist.\u00a0 The cinematography is much better in these films, to say the least and they also ably portray the period of the 1930s. \u00a0 If only they could have filmed\u00a0 Busman\u2019s Honeymoon,<\/em> but apparently the keepers of Sayer\u2019s estate wouldn\u2019t allow it. \u00a0 Odd.<\/p>\n In any case, if you are looking for some excellent entertainment with sparkling dialogue and wit, which also educates in various ways, you will find that these DVDs\u00a0 will keep you occupied for quite a few weeks of enjoyable viewing, watched one episode at a time.\u00a0\u00a0 My wife and I worked through them between just after Christmas and now, and a good time was had by the both of us.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) was one of the most important Christian writers of the twentieth century, and behind only\u00a0 Flannery O\u2019Conner as a Christian woman writing fiction.\u00a0 At the peak of her career, she rivaled any of her Oxfordian Christian contemporaries called the Inklings (Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams, etc.).\u00a0 There must have been something in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n
\n