Dorothy Sayers Knows Everything
OROTHY SAYERS reveals a mind stocked like an encyclopaedia. Almost everyone of her books shows an exact knowledge of something beyond the scope of ordinary detection. Take, for example, ‘my favourite among her books-The Nine Tailors. No gents’ suiting is made up in this book-the Nine Tailors refer to a peal of bells of which she appears to have expert knowledge. Have his Carcase shows a knowledge of haemophilia, that curious disease transmitted by the female line but attacking the male, which afflicted various members of inter-related royal houses of Europe. Or there are the wines for which both Lord Peter and Harriet show such a cultivated palate. When they discuss the characteristics of a claret of a particular vintage they leave me standing -I have to take for granted that the author’s statements are authoritative. One of Dorothy Sayers’s books has an Oxford setting, and those who know Somerville College recognise the buildings and the neighbourhood. The book is called Gaudy Night. Dorothy Sayers was for two or three years chairman of the Association of Senior Members of Somerville College, and also a Member of the Council, so that she must have known well all the inner workings of a "Gaudy." Another setting that she got from real life is that of Murder Must Advertise, in which Lord Peter, for the purpose of a little private detection, takes an assumed name and a position in an advertising agency. It was in such an agency that Dorothy Sayers worked for about eight years as a copy-writer. -("A Few Minutes with. Women Novelists: Dorothy Sayers,’ by Margaret Johnston, 2YA, March 29.)
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 96, 24 April 1941, Page 5
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274Dorothy Sayers Knows Everything New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 96, 24 April 1941, Page 5
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