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Dorothy Leigh Sayers - Page 1
Dorothy Leigh Sayers
The Dorothy L. Sayers Crime CollectionThe Dorothy L. Sayers Crime Collection
Thrones, DominationsThrones, Dominations
Striding Folly
In the Teeth of the EvidenceIn the Teeth of the Evidence
Busman's HoneymoonBusman's Honeymoon
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About the Author (Photo (c) Radio Times Hulton Picture Library)
Bibliography


First British Edition Folio Society (1998)
The Dorothy L. Sayers Crime Collection
See Review by Liz Lees
This attractive five-volume set is introduced by P. D. James, one of Britain's foremost authors of crime fiction.
The set includes:
Strong PoisonStrong Poison
Gaudy NightGaudy Night
The Nine TailorsThe Nine Tailors
Murder Must AdvertiseMurder Must Advertise
Have his CarcaseHave his Carcase
Slip case and covers are lavishly illustrated and additional line drawings accompany the text. Illustrator Natacha Ledwidge (who has also produced work for Vogue and Harpers & Queen) brings out the full period flavour of the Twenties and Thirties settings of the books.
The set has an approximate total of 1,856 pages, and measures 8 3/4" X 5 3/4"
'I admire her novels:.. she has a great fertility of invention, ingenuity and a wonderful eye for detail' Ruth Rendell
'Miss Sayers's inventive faculty is so prolific and so whimsical, and her sense of humour is so irrepressible that she cannot be dull.' Times Literary Supplement
'When other murders pall, and their chroniclers seem to flag, there is always Dorothy Sayers with her plots, exactitude, and characterization. She never slips and never fails to provide a good mystery story.' Chicago Tribune
'She aspired to be, and was, at once a popular entertainer and a conscientious craftsman: like (in her degree) Chaucer, Cervantes, Shakespeare or Moliere.' C. S. Lewis
'Miss Sayers has done more to add literary tone to crime fiction than most of her contemporaries.' Ellery Queen
'In reading her novels and short stories it is impossible not to admire the careful craftsmanship with which they have been made.' Julian Symons


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Paperback - NEL (1998)
Thrones, Dominations
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
The lost Lord Peter Wimsey novel completed by one of Britain's most distinguished novelists.
Jill Paton Walsh used the notes discovered in Sayers' agent's office, detailing how the novel begun by Dorothy L. Sayers was to develop, and completed the enthralling story of a society murder which involves both Lord Peter and his new wife Harriet when they set up home in London in 1936. Thrones, Dominations reads as if it were written entirely by Sayers herself and is endorsed by the Dorothy L. Sayers Society and by Dr Barbara Reynolds, Sayers’ biographer.
Jill Paton Walsh's novel Knowledge of Angels was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize and she has also won the Whitbread and Smarties prizes for her children's books. She lives in Cambridge and Cornwall,


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Striding Folly
Lord Peter Wimsey by John CampbellThe Three final Lord Peter Wimsey stories
(Illustration by John Campbell - Wimsey's first illustrator -1926 in Pearson's Magazine) Introduced by Janet Hitchman
Dorothy L. Sayers' novels have been continuously in demand since they were first published over fifty years ago. Lord Peter Wimsey, man-about-town and amateur sleuth, has become one of the most popular fiction heroes of the century.
In Striding Folly, Lord Peter appears for the last time in three very different novellas.
The title story is both a detective puzzle and an eerie supernatural incident, in which a dream about a game of chess has momentous consequences. A white rook, two castles, a dead black crow ... each has its part to play in the puzzle.
The Haunted Policeman is a detective tale, in which a drunken policeman is sober, a dead man was never alive - and a house is numbered thirteen in a street of even numbers. Only Lord Peter Wimsey can see through these apparent paradoxes.
Talboys, the third story, is a delightful portrait of the Wimseys' happy family as well as an accomplished detective story. There is dangerous rivalry over the village flower show; one of Lord Peter's children is accused of a crime and something nasty lurks in the furnace room.
'D.L. Sayers is one of the best detective story writers, with a style in her writing that is her own; it is also in her power to give you a good deal more for the money than a detective story.' E. C. Bentley in the Daily Telegraph
'Miss Sayers as a writer of detective fiction is in a class by herself ... extraordinarily interesting; full of vitality, vivid descriptions, and a sharp sense of character.' Morning Post


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Hardback
Gollancz (1948)
Paperback - NEL (2004)
Buy at Amazon.co.uk In the Teeth of the Evidence
With a new introduction by Elizabeth George
Lord Peter Wimsey by John Collier - 1926Lord Peter Wimsey stories:
In the Teeth of the Evidence
Absolutely Elsewhere
Montague Egg stories:
A Shot at Goal
Dirt cheap
Bitter Almonds
False Weight
The Professor's Manuscript
Other stories:
The Milk Bottles
Dilemma
An Arrow o'er the House
Scrawns
Nebuchadnezzar
The Inspiration of Mr Budd
Blood Sacrifice
Suspicion
The Leopard Lady
The Cyprian Cat

'I admire her novels… she has great fertility of invention, ingenuity and a wonderful eye for detail' Ruth Rendell
'Brilliant little problems in detection!' Daily Telegraph
'She brought to the detective novel originality, intelligence, energy and wit' P.D.James


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Paperback - NEL
Busman's Honeymoon
A Love Story with Detective Interruptions Variously described as a love story with detective interruptions, and a detective story with romantic interruptions, 'Busman's Honeymoon' lives up to both these descriptions with style and ease.
In this, the last of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels (though he did appear again in short stories), the inimitable Miss Sayers has married him off to his beloved Harriet, but this has in no way diminished Lord Peter's determination to see a case through to the very, very end …


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About The Author
Dorothy L. Sayers was born in Oxford in 1893, and was both a classical scholar and a graduate of modern languages. Her popularity as a writer is based on the novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and several collections of short stories.
She also became famous during the Second World War for her religious plays, The Man Born to be King, a life of Christ presented in modern English, which at first aroused considerable controversy. She wrote several more religious plays, but considered her translations of Dante's La Divina Commedia to be her best work. She died in 1957, leaving the translation of Paradiso unfinished. It was completed by her friend, Dr Barbara Reynolds.
Dorothy L. Sayers wrote much of her own life into her books. She was one of the first female graduates of Oxford University, like her character Harriet Vane; she grew up in the same Fenland that appears in The Nine Tailors, and worked in the advertising agency of Murder Must Advertise. Her books are full of the exquisite period detail that links her so firmly to the 'Golden Age' of the Twenties and Thirties, and they have, of course, some of the most brilliantly devised - and devilishly clever - plots in the history of detective fiction.
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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

  • The Dorothy L. Sayers Crime Collection (Folio Society, 1998)
  • Thrones, Dominations ( 1997) NEL Pbk 1998
  • Crime on the Coast & No Flowers by Request (Gollancz, 1984) Collaboration with The Detection Club
  • The Scoop and Behind the Screen (Gollancz, 1983) Collaboration with The Detection Club
  • Striding Folly Short Stories (NEL, 1972) ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Lord Peter Short Stories (Harper, 1972) 20 Wimsey stories (American Edition) ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • In the Teeth of the Evidence Short Stories (Gollancz, 1939) 17 stories- 2 Wimsey & 5 Egg Gollancz 1948 NEL Pbk Apr 04
  • Double Death: A Murder Story (Gollancz, 1939) Collaboration with The Detection Club
  • Busman's Honeymoon (Gollancz, 1937) ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Six Against the Yard (Selwyn & Blount, 1936) ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Gaudy Night (Gollancz, 1935) Gollancz Pbk 1939 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • The Nine Tailors (Gollancz, 1934) Gollancz 1946 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Hangman's Holiday Short Stories (Gollancz, 1933)
  • Murder Must Advertise (Gollancz, 1933) Gollancz 1946 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Ask a Policeman (Arthur Barker, 1933) Collaboration with The Detection Club
  • Have His Carcase (Gollancz, 1932) ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • The Floating Admiral (Hodder, 1931) Collaboration with The Detection Club
  • The Five Red Herrings (Gollancz, 1931) Gollancz 1951 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Strong Poison (Gollancz, 1930) Gollancz 1949 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • The Documents in the Case (Ernest Benn, 1930) a collaboration with Robert Eustace Gollancz 1948 NEL Pbk Apr 04
  • The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Ernest Benn, 1928) Gollancz 1947 NEL Pbk Apr 04 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Lord Peter Views the Body Short Stories (Gollancz, 1928) Gollancz 1948 NEL Pbk Apr 04 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Unnatural Death (Ernest Benn, 1927) Gollancz 1948 NEL Pbk Apr 04 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Clouds of Witness (T. Fisher Unwin, 1926) NEL Pbk Apr 04 ( Lord Peter Wimsey)
  • Whose Body? (T. Fisher Unwin, 1923) Gollancz 1949 NEL (n.d.) ( Lord Peter Wimsey)


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