Lord Peter Wimsey
Encyclopedia
Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is a bon vivant amateur sleuth
in a series of detective novels
and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers
, in which he solves mysteries; usually, but not always, murders. Wimsey is an archetype
for the British gentleman detective
.
Born in 1890 and aging in real time, Wimsey is described as having at best average height with straw-coloured hair, a beaked nose, and a vaguely foolish face. (Reputedly his looks were patterned after those of academic Roy Ridley
.) He also possesses considerable intelligence and athletic ability, evidenced by his playing cricket
for Oxford University while earning a First
and by creating a spectacularly successful publicity campaign for Whifflet cigarettes while working for Pym's Publicity Ltd. and still, at 40, being able to turn three cartwheels in the office corridor, stopping just short of the boss's open office door (Murder Must Advertise
). Wimsey sometimes affects a slightly silly behaviour, so that people underestimate him.
Among Lord Peter's hobbies, apart from criminology, is collecting incunabula
. He is an expert on matters of food (especially wine) and male fashion, and on classical music. He is quite good at playing Bach
's works for keyboard instruments on a piano he treats even more carefully than his books, wines, and cars. One of Lord Peter's cars is a 12-cylinder ("double-six") 1927 Daimler
four-seater, which (like all his cars) he calls "Mrs. Merdle" after a character in Little Dorrit
(by Charles Dickens
) who "hated fuss".
Janet Hitchman, in the preface to "Striding Folly
", remarks that "Wimsey may have been the sad ghost of a wartime lover(...). Oxford, as everywhere in the country, was filled with bereaved women, but it may have been more noticeable in university towns where a whole year's intake could be wiped out in France in less than an hour." There is, however, no verifiable evidence of any such World War I
lover of Sayers on whom the character of Wimsey might be based.
Another theory is that Wimsey was based, at least in part, on Eric Whelpton
, who was a close friend of Sayers at Oxford.
The novels are set in Britain contemporaneously with when they were written, from the early 1920s to the late 1930s. The story "Talboys" and Jill Paton Walsh
's recent continuations Thrones, Dominations
and A Presumption of Death
continue this into the early 1940s, while Paton Walsh's third continuation The Attenbury Emeralds
is set in the postwar era.
on the Third Crusade
and took part in the Siege of Acre. This makes the Wimseys an unusually ancient family, since "Very few English noble families go that far in the first creation; rebellions and monarchic head choppings had seen to that" (as reviewer Janet Hitchman noted in the introduction to "Striding Folly
"). The family coat of arms
is described as sable, 3 mice courant, argent; crest, a domestic cat couched as to spring, proper. The family motto, displayed under its coat of arms, is "As My Whimsy Takes Me."
Lord Peter's extended family appears frequently in the novels. He is the second of the three children of Mortimer Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver
, and Honoria Lucasta Delagardie, who lives on throughout the novels as the Dowager
Duchess of Denver. The Dowager Duchess is affable, intelligent, and strongly supports her younger son, whom she may prefer over his less intelligent and more conventional older brother, Gerald, the 16th Duke. Gerald's snobbish wife, Helen (who detests Wimsey), and their devil-may-care heir, Viscount St. George (Wimsey's nephew, who likes him), also make appearances in the novels, as does Lady Mary, the younger sister of the Duke and Lord Peter.
Lord Peter was educated at Eton College
and Balliol College, Oxford
, where he received a first
-class degree in history. He was also an outstanding cricketer
, whose performance would still be well remembered decades later (and lead to unmasking his disguise in Murder Must Advertise
). Though not taking up an academic career, he was left with an enduring and deep love for his Oxford alma mater
(which in Gaudy Night
would be a major factor in his at last winning Harriet Vane).
At that point he was engaged to a girl named Barbara. When the First World War broke out, he hastened to join the British Army
and released Barbara from her engagement in case he was killed or mutilated. The girl later married another, less principled officer.
Wimsey served on the Western Front
from 1914 to 1918, reaching the rank of Major
in the Rifle Brigade. At one stage, he was appointed an Intelligence Officer
. This included, on one occasion, going disguised into the staff-room of a German officer. Though not otherwise stated, being able to do that implies that Wimsey spoke a fluent and unaccented German. As noted in "Have His Carcase
", he at that time communicated with British Intelligence using the Playfair cipher
and became proficient in its use.
For reasons never clarified in any of the books, after the end of his mission as a spy behind enemy lines Wimsey was in the later part of the war removed from Intelligence and resumed the job of a regular line officer. He was a conscientious and effective commanding officer, popular with the men under his command — an affection still retained by Wimsey's former soldiers many years after the war, as evident from a short passage in "Clouds of Witness
" and an extensive flashback in "Gaudy Night
".
Especially, at this time in the army he met Sergeant
Mervyn Bunter
, who had previously been in service. After sharing what the Dowager Duchess referred to as "a jam," the two arranged that if they were both to survive the war, Bunter would become Wimsey's valet
. Throughout the books Bunter always takes care to address Wimsey as "My Lord". Nevertheless, he is obviously a friend as well as a servant, and Wimsey again and again expresses amazement at Bunter's high efficiency and competence at virtually every sphere of life.
In 1918, Wimsey was severely injured by artillery fire near Caudry
in France. He suffered a breakdown due to shell shock
/post-traumatic stress disorder
, and was eventually sent home. After the war he was ill for many months, recovering at the family's ancestral home in Duke's Denver (fictional, like the dukedom it gives its name to) which lies some fifteen miles beyond the original Denver
on the A10 near Downham Market
. As noted on several occasions, Wimsey was for a time unable to give servants any order whatsoever since his wartime experience made him associate the giving of an order with causing the death of the person to whom the order was given. Bunter arrived and, with the approval of the Dowager Duchess, took up his post. Bunter moved Wimsey to a London flat at 110A Piccadilly
, W1
while Wimsey recovered. Also much later, however, Wimsey would have relapses - especially when faced with his actions causing a murderer to be hanged. As noted in "Whose Body?
", on such occasions Bunter would take care of Wimsey and tenderly put him to bed, and they would revert to being "Major Wimsey" and "Sergeant Bunter".
in 1921. He also becomes good friends with Scotland Yard
detective Charles Parker
, a sergeant in 1921 who eventually rises to the rank of Commander. Bunter, being a man of many talents himself—not least photography
—often proves instrumental in Peter's investigations. However, Wimsey is not entirely well. At the end of the investigation in Whose Body?
(1923) he hallucinates
that he is back in the trenches. He soon recovers his senses and goes on a long holiday.
The next year, he returns (in Clouds of Witness
(1926)) to the fictional Riddlesdale in North Yorkshire to assist his older brother Gerald, who has been accused of murdering Captain Denis Cathcart, their sister's fiancé. Gerald is the current Duke of Denver and points out that, strictly, to be tried by his peers would be difficult. Nevertheless, as required by the law at that time, he is tried by the entire House of Lords to much scandal and the distress of his wife Helen. Their sister, Lady Mary, also falls under suspicion. Lord Peter clears the Duke and Lady Mary, to whom Parker is attracted.
It is not exactly known when Wimsey recruited Miss Climpson to run an undercover employment agency for women, in order to be able to garner information from the world of spinsters and widows which neither master nor man would be able to access, but it is prior to Unnatural Death
(1927), in which Miss Climpson assists Wimsey's investigation of the suspicious death of an elderly cancer patient.
As recounted in the short story "The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba", in December 1927 Wimsey faked his own death, supposedly while hunting big game in Tanganyika
, in order to penetrate and break up a particularly dangerous and well-organised criminal gang. Only Wimsey's mother and sister, the loyal Bunter and Inspector Parker knew he was still alive. Emerging victorious after more than a year masquerading as "the disgruntled sacked servant Rogers", Wimsey remarked that "We shall have an awful time with the lawyers, proving that I am me." In fact, he returned smoothly to his old life, and the interlude is never referred to in later books.
In Strong Poison
Lord Peter meets Harriet Vane
and falls in love with her at first sight, while she thinks he's a bit crazy. Harriet is a cerebral, Oxford-educated mystery writer on trial for the murder of her former lover. Needless to say, Wimsey saves her from the gallows, but based on the principle that gratitude is not a good foundation for marriage, she politely but firmly declines his frequent proposals. Lord Peter does encourage his friend and foil, Chief Inspector Charles Parker, to propose to his sister, Lady Mary Wimsey, despite the great difference in their rank and wealth. They marry and have a son, named Charles Peter ("Peterkin"), and a daughter, Mary Lucasta.
Wimsey continues to pursue Miss Vane, but does not get much satisfaction. He investigates the murder of an artist while on a fishing holiday in Scotland (Five Red Herrings
). On his return he finds Miss Vane is not at home; he learns her location when reporter Salcombe Hardy asks Wimsey to comment on the murder victim Vane discovered on her walking tour of England's coast (Have His Carcase
). Hardy does not have to point out that Vane might have committed the murder herself—one who was once tried for murder does not have the best reputation. The next morning Wimsey is at her hotel, not only to investigate the death and once more offer proposals of marriage, but also to act as her patron
and protector with press and police. Despite a prickly relationship, they do work together to identify the murderer.
Back in London, Wimsey goes undercover
as "Death Bredon" at an advertising firm, working as a copywriter (Murder Must Advertise
). Bredon is framed for murder, leading Charles Parker to "arrest" Bredon for murder in front of the press. To distinguish Death Bredon from Lord Peter Wimsey, Parker smuggles Wimsey out of the station and urges him to get into the papers. Accordingly Wimsey accompanies "a Royal personage" to a public event, leading the press to carry pictures of both "Bredon" and Wimsey.
By 1935 Lord Peter is in continental Europe, acting as an unofficial attaché
for the British Foreign Office. Harriet Vane contacts him about a problem she has been asked to investigate in her college at Oxford
(Gaudy Night
). At the end of their investigation, Vane finally accepts Peter's proposal of marriage. The couple marry, on 8 October 1935, at St. Cross Church
, Holywell, Oxford (depicted in the opening collection of letters and diary entries in Busman's Honeymoon
).
The Wimseys go on honeymoon to Talboys, a house in east Hertfordshire
near where the young Harriet's father was a country doctor, which she has loved from childhood and which Peter has bought for her as a wedding present. There, they find the body of the previous owner, and spend their honeymoon solving the case, thus having the eponymous Busman's Honeymoon
.
Over the next five years, the Wimseys have three sons: Bredon Delagardie Peter Wimsey (born in October 1936 in the story "The Haunted Policeman"); Roger Wimsey (born 1938), and Paul Wimsey (born 1940). (Note that in A Presumption of Death
the second son is called Paul, because in the wartime publications of The Wimsey Papers Dorothy Sayers called him that.) It may be presumed that Paul is named after Lord Peter's maternal uncle Paul Delagardie. "Roger" is an ancestral Wimsey name. (Sayers told friends orally that Harriet and Peter were to eventually have five children in all.)
In the Wimsey story, the 1942 short story "Talboys", Peter and Harriet are enjoying rural domestic bliss with their three sons when Bredon, their first-born, is accused of the theft of prize peaches from the neighbour's tree. Peter and the accused set off to investigate and, of course, prove Bredon's innocence.
.
Sayers wrote no more Wimsey murder mysteries (and only one story involving him) after the outbreak of the Second World War. In one of the Wimsey Papers (a series of fictionalised commentaries in the form of mock letters between members of the Wimsey family), there is a reference to Harriet's difficulty in continuing to write murder mysteries at a time when European dictators were openly committing mass murders with impunity; this seems to have reflected Sayers' own wartime feeling. The Wimsey Papers included a reference to Wimsey and Bunter setting out during the war on a secret mission of espionage in Europe (pointing to the possibility of a spy thriller featuring them, which was never written).
The only occasion when Sayers returned to Wimsey was the 1942 short story "Talboys". The war at that time devastating Europe got only a single oblique reference. Though Sayers lived until 1957, she never again took up the Wimsey books after this final effort. In effect, rather than killing off her detective, as Conan Doyle unsuccessfully tried with his, Sayers pensioned Wimsey off to a happy, satisfying old age. Thus, Peter Wimsey remained forever fixed on the background of inter-war England, and the books are nowadays often read for their evocation of that period as much as for the intrinsic detective mysteries (as Sherlock Holmes is often read for the distinctive late Victorian atmosphere of his background).
" Bunter is seen, even in the privacy of his own mind, to be thinking of his employer as "His Lordship". Wimsey and Bunter even mock the Jeeves and Wooster relationship.
However, in "Whose Body?
" it is seen that when Wimsey is caught by a severe recurrence of his WWI shell-shock and nightmares, being taken care of by Bunter, the two of them revert to being "Major Wimsey" and "Sergeant Bunter". In that role, Bunter - sitting at the bedside of the sleeping Wimsey - is seen to mutter affectionately "Bloody little fool!"
In "The Vindictive Story of the Footsteps That Run," the staunchly democratic Doctor Hartman invites Bunter to sit down to eat together with himself and Wimsey, at the doctor's modest apartment. Wimsey does not object, but Bunter strongly does: "If I may state my own preference, sir, it would be to wait upon you and his lordship in the usual manner". Whereupon Wimsey remarks: "Bunter likes me to know my place"
At the conclusion of Strong Poison
, Inspector Parker asks "What would one naturally do if one found one's water-bottle empty?" (a point of crucial importance in solving the book's mystery). Wimsey promptly answers "Ring the bell." Whereupon Miss Murchison, the indefatigable investigator employed by Wimsey for much of this book, comments "Or, if one wasn't accustomed to be waited on, one might use the water from the bedroom jug."
Some of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels were made into two television
productions by the BBC
. Lord Peter Wimsey was played by Ian Carmichael
in a series of independent serials that ran from 1972 to 1975 and adapted five novels, and by Edward Petherbridge
in 1987, wherein the three major Wimsey/Vane novels were dramatised. Harriet was played by Harriet Walter
. The BBC was unable to secure the rights to turn Busman's Honeymoon into a proposed fourth adaptation of the planned 13-episode series. Unable to adapt Honeymoon, the series was trimmed to ten episodes and was transmitted under the title A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery. Both the 1970s productions and the 1987 series are now available on videotape and DVD.
Edward Petherbridge
also played Wimsey in the UK production of the Busman's Honeymoon play staged at the Lyric Hammersmith
in 1988 (it also toured in the North of England), with the role of Harriet being taken by his real life spouse, Emily Richard
.
Ian Carmichael
also starred as Wimsey in radio adaptations of the novels made by the BBC, all of which have been available on cassette and CD from the BBC Radio Collection
. In the original series, which ran on Radio 4
from 1973–83, no adaptation was made of the seminal Gaudy Night
, perhaps because the leading character in this novel is Harriet and not Peter; this was corrected in 2005 when a version specially recorded for the BBC Radio Collection was released starring Carmichael and Joanna David
. The CD also includes a panel discussion on the novel, the major participants in which are P. D. James
and Jill Paton Walsh
. Gaudy Night was released as an unabridged audiobook read by Ian Carmichael in 1993.
There was a 1935 British movie of The Silent Passenger
, in which Lord Peter (played by Peter Haddon
) solved a mystery on the boat train crossing the English Channel
; the film does not seem to be available on videotape, at least in the United States. Sayers disliked the film. James Brabazon describes it as an "oddity, in which Dorothy's contribution was altered out of all recognition."
The 1940 film The Haunted Honeymoon (US title) or Busman's Honeymoon (UK title), starring Robert Montgomery
and Constance Cummings
as Lord and Lady Peter, is available on videotape in generic boxes on the secondary market. Any resemblance of its characters and events to those in Busman's Honeymoon is more than coincidental but less than satisfactory to Sayers's fans; the film script simplifies the novel's plot a great deal. (In the TV adaptation of Murder Must Advertise, a movie poster of Robert Montgomery is prominently visible on the wall in the secretaries' office). Sayers refused even to see this movie.
In addition there are
As a footnote, Lord Peter Wimsey has also been included by the science fiction
writer Philip José Farmer
as a member of the Wold Newton family
; and Laurie R. King
's detective character Mary Russell meets up with Lord Peter at a party in the novel A Letter of Mary
.
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
in a series of detective novels
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...
, in which he solves mysteries; usually, but not always, murders. Wimsey is an archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
for the British gentleman detective
Gentleman detective
The gentleman detective is a type of fictional character. He has long been a staple of crime fiction, particularly in detective novels and short stories set in Britain in the Golden Age...
.
Born in 1890 and aging in real time, Wimsey is described as having at best average height with straw-coloured hair, a beaked nose, and a vaguely foolish face. (Reputedly his looks were patterned after those of academic Roy Ridley
Roy Ridley
Maurice Roy Ridley was a writer and poet, Fellow and Chaplain of Balliol College, Oxford. He was a model for the fictional character Lord Peter Wimsey.-Life:...
.) He also possesses considerable intelligence and athletic ability, evidenced by his playing cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
for Oxford University while earning a First
British undergraduate degree classification
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees in the United Kingdom...
and by creating a spectacularly successful publicity campaign for Whifflet cigarettes while working for Pym's Publicity Ltd. and still, at 40, being able to turn three cartwheels in the office corridor, stopping just short of the boss's open office door (Murder Must Advertise
Murder Must Advertise
Murder Must Advertise is a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, published in 1933.Most of the action takes place in an advertising agency, a setting with which Sayers was very familiar. One of her advertising colleagues, Bobby Bevan, was the inspiration for the character Mr Ingleby...
). Wimsey sometimes affects a slightly silly behaviour, so that people underestimate him.
Among Lord Peter's hobbies, apart from criminology, is collecting incunabula
Incunabulum
Incunable, or sometimes incunabulum is a book, pamphlet, or broadside, that was printed — not handwritten — before the year 1501 in Europe...
. He is an expert on matters of food (especially wine) and male fashion, and on classical music. He is quite good at playing Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's works for keyboard instruments on a piano he treats even more carefully than his books, wines, and cars. One of Lord Peter's cars is a 12-cylinder ("double-six") 1927 Daimler
Daimler Motor Company
The Daimler Motor Company Limited was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H J Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The right to the use of the name Daimler had been purchased simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler Motoren...
four-seater, which (like all his cars) he calls "Mrs. Merdle" after a character in Little Dorrit
Little Dorrit
Little Dorrit is a serial novel by Charles Dickens published originally between 1855 and 1857. It is a work of satire on the shortcomings of the government and society of the period....
(by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
) who "hated fuss".
Origins
In How I Came to Invent the Character of Lord Peter Wimsey, Sayers wrote:Janet Hitchman, in the preface to "Striding Folly
Striding Folly
Striding Folly is a collection of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.First published in 1972, it contains the final three Lord Peter stories. The first two, "Striding Folly" and "The Haunted Policeman", were previously published in Detection Medley , an anthology of...
", remarks that "Wimsey may have been the sad ghost of a wartime lover(...). Oxford, as everywhere in the country, was filled with bereaved women, but it may have been more noticeable in university towns where a whole year's intake could be wiped out in France in less than an hour." There is, however, no verifiable evidence of any such World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
lover of Sayers on whom the character of Wimsey might be based.
Another theory is that Wimsey was based, at least in part, on Eric Whelpton
Eric Whelpton
Eric Whelpton was the son of the Revd George Whelpton, minister of Trinity Methodist church, Abingdon. From Abingdon School and the Leys School, Cambridge, Eric entered Hertford College, Oxford, then taught at Christ Church Cathedral School.At Oxford, Whelpton became a close friend of Dorothy...
, who was a close friend of Sayers at Oxford.
The novels are set in Britain contemporaneously with when they were written, from the early 1920s to the late 1930s. The story "Talboys" and Jill Paton Walsh
Jill Paton Walsh
Jill Paton Walsh, CBE, FRSL is an English novelist and children's writer.Born as Gillian Bliss and educated at St. Michael's Convent, North Finchley, London, she read English Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford...
's recent continuations Thrones, Dominations
Thrones, Dominations
Thrones, Dominations is a Lord Peter Wimsey murder mystery novel that Dorothy L. Sayers began writing but abandoned, and which remained as fragments and notes at her death. It was completed by Jill Paton Walsh and published in 1998...
and A Presumption of Death
A Presumption of Death
A Presumption of Death is a mystery novel by Jill Paton Walsh, based loosely on The Wimsey Papers by Dorothy L. Sayers. The Wimsey Papers were a series of articles published by Sayers during World War II, purporting to be letters written between the various Wimseys during the war A Presumption of...
continue this into the early 1940s, while Paton Walsh's third continuation The Attenbury Emeralds
The Attenbury Emeralds
The Attenbury Emeralds is the third Lord Peter Wimsey detective novel to be written by Jill Paton Walsh. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton in September 2010.Closely following Lord Peter creator Dorothy L...
is set in the postwar era.
Early life
Lord Peter Wimsey's first known ancestor is the 12th-century knight Gerald de Wimsey, who went with King Richard The Lion HeartRichard I of England
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...
on the Third Crusade
Third Crusade
The Third Crusade , also known as the Kings' Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin...
and took part in the Siege of Acre. This makes the Wimseys an unusually ancient family, since "Very few English noble families go that far in the first creation; rebellions and monarchic head choppings had seen to that" (as reviewer Janet Hitchman noted in the introduction to "Striding Folly
Striding Folly
Striding Folly is a collection of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.First published in 1972, it contains the final three Lord Peter stories. The first two, "Striding Folly" and "The Haunted Policeman", were previously published in Detection Medley , an anthology of...
"). The family coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
is described as sable, 3 mice courant, argent; crest, a domestic cat couched as to spring, proper. The family motto, displayed under its coat of arms, is "As My Whimsy Takes Me."
Lord Peter's extended family appears frequently in the novels. He is the second of the three children of Mortimer Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver
Duke of Denver
The fictitious title of Duke of Denver was created by Dorothy Sayers for the family of Lord Peter Wimsey. Lord Peter is the second of the three children of Mortimer Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver...
, and Honoria Lucasta Delagardie, who lives on throughout the novels as the Dowager
Dowager
A dowager is a widow who holds a title or property, or dower, derived from her deceased husband. As an adjective, "Dowager" usually appears in association with monarchical and aristocratic titles....
Duchess of Denver. The Dowager Duchess is affable, intelligent, and strongly supports her younger son, whom she may prefer over his less intelligent and more conventional older brother, Gerald, the 16th Duke. Gerald's snobbish wife, Helen (who detests Wimsey), and their devil-may-care heir, Viscount St. George (Wimsey's nephew, who likes him), also make appearances in the novels, as does Lady Mary, the younger sister of the Duke and Lord Peter.
Lord Peter was educated at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
, where he received a first
British undergraduate degree classification
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees in the United Kingdom...
-class degree in history. He was also an outstanding cricketer
Cricketer
A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....
, whose performance would still be well remembered decades later (and lead to unmasking his disguise in Murder Must Advertise
Murder Must Advertise
Murder Must Advertise is a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, published in 1933.Most of the action takes place in an advertising agency, a setting with which Sayers was very familiar. One of her advertising colleagues, Bobby Bevan, was the inspiration for the character Mr Ingleby...
). Though not taking up an academic career, he was left with an enduring and deep love for his Oxford alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
(which in Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth in her popular series about aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third featuring crime writer Harriet Vane....
would be a major factor in his at last winning Harriet Vane).
At that point he was engaged to a girl named Barbara. When the First World War broke out, he hastened to join the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
and released Barbara from her engagement in case he was killed or mutilated. The girl later married another, less principled officer.
Wimsey served on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
from 1914 to 1918, reaching the rank of Major
Major (UK)
In the British military, major is a military rank which is used by both the British Army and Royal Marines. The rank insignia for a major is a crown...
in the Rifle Brigade. At one stage, he was appointed an Intelligence Officer
Intelligence officer
An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile and/or analyze information which is of use to that organization...
. This included, on one occasion, going disguised into the staff-room of a German officer. Though not otherwise stated, being able to do that implies that Wimsey spoke a fluent and unaccented German. As noted in "Have His Carcase
Have His Carcase
Have His Carcase is a 1932 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and her second novel in which Harriet Vane appears...
", he at that time communicated with British Intelligence using the Playfair cipher
Playfair cipher
The Playfair cipher or Playfair square is a manual symmetric encryption technique and was the first literal digraph substitution cipher. The scheme was invented in 1854 by Charles Wheatstone, but bears the name of Lord Playfair who promoted the use of the cipher.The technique encrypts pairs of...
and became proficient in its use.
For reasons never clarified in any of the books, after the end of his mission as a spy behind enemy lines Wimsey was in the later part of the war removed from Intelligence and resumed the job of a regular line officer. He was a conscientious and effective commanding officer, popular with the men under his command — an affection still retained by Wimsey's former soldiers many years after the war, as evident from a short passage in "Clouds of Witness
Clouds of Witness
Clouds of Witness is a 1926 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the second in her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.It was adapted for television in 1972, as part of a series starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter.-Plot introduction:...
" and an extensive flashback in "Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth in her popular series about aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third featuring crime writer Harriet Vane....
".
Especially, at this time in the army he met Sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
Mervyn Bunter
Mervyn Bunter
Mervyn Bunter is a fictional character in Dorothy L. Sayers' novels and short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.- Literary Background :Dorothy L...
, who had previously been in service. After sharing what the Dowager Duchess referred to as "a jam," the two arranged that if they were both to survive the war, Bunter would become Wimsey's valet
Valet
Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.- Word origins :In the Middle Ages, the valet de chambre to a ruler was a prestigious appointment for young men...
. Throughout the books Bunter always takes care to address Wimsey as "My Lord". Nevertheless, he is obviously a friend as well as a servant, and Wimsey again and again expresses amazement at Bunter's high efficiency and competence at virtually every sphere of life.
In 1918, Wimsey was severely injured by artillery fire near Caudry
Caudry
Caudry is a commune of the Nord department in northern France.-History:In the Middle Ages, as tradition will have it, Maxellende, a daughter of the lord of Caudry, was stabbed to death by one Harduin d'Amerval on 13 November 670 after turning him down. Following this Harduin became blind...
in France. He suffered a breakdown due to shell shock
Shell Shock
Shell Shock, also known as 82nd Marines Attack was a 1964 film by B-movie director John Hayes. The film takes place in Italy during World War II, and tells the story of a sergeant with his group of soldiers....
/post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Posttraumaticstress disorder is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,...
, and was eventually sent home. After the war he was ill for many months, recovering at the family's ancestral home in Duke's Denver (fictional, like the dukedom it gives its name to) which lies some fifteen miles beyond the original Denver
Denver, Norfolk
Denver is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located on the River Great Ouse, 1 mile south of the small town of Downham Market, 14 miles south of the larger town of King's Lynn, and 37 miles west of the city of Norwich.The civil parish has an area of...
on the A10 near Downham Market
Downham Market
Downham Market is a town and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It lies on the edge of the Fens, on the River Great Ouse, some 20 km south of the town of King's Lynn, 60 km west of the city of Norwich and the same distance north of the city of Cambridge....
. As noted on several occasions, Wimsey was for a time unable to give servants any order whatsoever since his wartime experience made him associate the giving of an order with causing the death of the person to whom the order was given. Bunter arrived and, with the approval of the Dowager Duchess, took up his post. Bunter moved Wimsey to a London flat at 110A Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
, W1
London postal district
The London postal district is the area in England, currently of , to which mail addressed to the LONDON post town is delivered. The area was initially devised in 1856 and throughout its history has been subject to periodic reorganisation, contraction and division into increasingly smaller postal...
while Wimsey recovered. Also much later, however, Wimsey would have relapses - especially when faced with his actions causing a murderer to be hanged. As noted in "Whose Body?
Whose Body?
Whose Body? is a 1923 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, which introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.-Plot introduction:Lord Peter is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect, and investigates...
", on such occasions Bunter would take care of Wimsey and tenderly put him to bed, and they would revert to being "Major Wimsey" and "Sergeant Bunter".
Detective work
Lord Peter begins his hobby of investigation by recovering The Attenbury EmeraldsThe Attenbury Emeralds
The Attenbury Emeralds is the third Lord Peter Wimsey detective novel to be written by Jill Paton Walsh. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton in September 2010.Closely following Lord Peter creator Dorothy L...
in 1921. He also becomes good friends with Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
detective Charles Parker
Charles Parker (detective)
Charles Parker is a fictional police detective who appears in several Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, and eventually becomes Lord Peter's brother-in-law.He is first introduced in Whose Body? as a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard...
, a sergeant in 1921 who eventually rises to the rank of Commander. Bunter, being a man of many talents himself—not least photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
—often proves instrumental in Peter's investigations. However, Wimsey is not entirely well. At the end of the investigation in Whose Body?
Whose Body?
Whose Body? is a 1923 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, which introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.-Plot introduction:Lord Peter is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect, and investigates...
(1923) he hallucinates
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
that he is back in the trenches. He soon recovers his senses and goes on a long holiday.
The next year, he returns (in Clouds of Witness
Clouds of Witness
Clouds of Witness is a 1926 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the second in her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.It was adapted for television in 1972, as part of a series starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter.-Plot introduction:...
(1926)) to the fictional Riddlesdale in North Yorkshire to assist his older brother Gerald, who has been accused of murdering Captain Denis Cathcart, their sister's fiancé. Gerald is the current Duke of Denver and points out that, strictly, to be tried by his peers would be difficult. Nevertheless, as required by the law at that time, he is tried by the entire House of Lords to much scandal and the distress of his wife Helen. Their sister, Lady Mary, also falls under suspicion. Lord Peter clears the Duke and Lady Mary, to whom Parker is attracted.
It is not exactly known when Wimsey recruited Miss Climpson to run an undercover employment agency for women, in order to be able to garner information from the world of spinsters and widows which neither master nor man would be able to access, but it is prior to Unnatural Death
Unnatural Death
Unnatural Death is a 1927 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her third featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It has also been published in the United States as The Dawson Pedigree.-Plot introduction:...
(1927), in which Miss Climpson assists Wimsey's investigation of the suspicious death of an elderly cancer patient.
As recounted in the short story "The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba", in December 1927 Wimsey faked his own death, supposedly while hunting big game in Tanganyika
Tanganyika
Tanganyika , later formally the Republic of Tanganyika, was a sovereign state in East Africa from 1961 to 1964. It was situated between the Indian Ocean and the African Great Lakes of Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika...
, in order to penetrate and break up a particularly dangerous and well-organised criminal gang. Only Wimsey's mother and sister, the loyal Bunter and Inspector Parker knew he was still alive. Emerging victorious after more than a year masquerading as "the disgruntled sacked servant Rogers", Wimsey remarked that "We shall have an awful time with the lawyers, proving that I am me." In fact, he returned smoothly to his old life, and the interlude is never referred to in later books.
In Strong Poison
Strong Poison
Strong Poison is a 1929 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fifth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.-Plot introduction:It is in Strong Poison that Lord Peter first meets Harriet Vane, an author of police fiction. The immediate problem is that she is on trial for her life, charged with murdering her former...
Lord Peter meets Harriet Vane
Harriet Vane
Harriet Deborah Vane, later Lady Peter Wimsey, is a fictional character in the works of British writer Dorothy L. Sayers ....
and falls in love with her at first sight, while she thinks he's a bit crazy. Harriet is a cerebral, Oxford-educated mystery writer on trial for the murder of her former lover. Needless to say, Wimsey saves her from the gallows, but based on the principle that gratitude is not a good foundation for marriage, she politely but firmly declines his frequent proposals. Lord Peter does encourage his friend and foil, Chief Inspector Charles Parker, to propose to his sister, Lady Mary Wimsey, despite the great difference in their rank and wealth. They marry and have a son, named Charles Peter ("Peterkin"), and a daughter, Mary Lucasta.
Wimsey continues to pursue Miss Vane, but does not get much satisfaction. He investigates the murder of an artist while on a fishing holiday in Scotland (Five Red Herrings
Five Red Herrings
Five Red Herrings is a 1931 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. It was retitled Suspicious Characters for its first publication in the United States, but reverted to its original title in subsequent printings....
). On his return he finds Miss Vane is not at home; he learns her location when reporter Salcombe Hardy asks Wimsey to comment on the murder victim Vane discovered on her walking tour of England's coast (Have His Carcase
Have His Carcase
Have His Carcase is a 1932 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and her second novel in which Harriet Vane appears...
). Hardy does not have to point out that Vane might have committed the murder herself—one who was once tried for murder does not have the best reputation. The next morning Wimsey is at her hotel, not only to investigate the death and once more offer proposals of marriage, but also to act as her patron
Patrón
Patrón is a luxury brand of tequila produced in Mexico and sold in hand-blown, individually numbered bottles.Made entirely from Blue Agave "piñas" , Patrón comes in five varieties: Silver, Añejo, Reposado, Gran Patrón Platinum and Gran Patrón Burdeos. Patrón also sells a tequila-coffee blend known...
and protector with press and police. Despite a prickly relationship, they do work together to identify the murderer.
Back in London, Wimsey goes undercover
Undercover
Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
as "Death Bredon" at an advertising firm, working as a copywriter (Murder Must Advertise
Murder Must Advertise
Murder Must Advertise is a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, published in 1933.Most of the action takes place in an advertising agency, a setting with which Sayers was very familiar. One of her advertising colleagues, Bobby Bevan, was the inspiration for the character Mr Ingleby...
). Bredon is framed for murder, leading Charles Parker to "arrest" Bredon for murder in front of the press. To distinguish Death Bredon from Lord Peter Wimsey, Parker smuggles Wimsey out of the station and urges him to get into the papers. Accordingly Wimsey accompanies "a Royal personage" to a public event, leading the press to carry pictures of both "Bredon" and Wimsey.
By 1935 Lord Peter is in continental Europe, acting as an unofficial attaché
Attaché
Attaché is a French term in diplomacy referring to a person who is assigned to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency...
for the British Foreign Office. Harriet Vane contacts him about a problem she has been asked to investigate in her college at Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
(Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth in her popular series about aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third featuring crime writer Harriet Vane....
). At the end of their investigation, Vane finally accepts Peter's proposal of marriage. The couple marry, on 8 October 1935, at St. Cross Church
St Cross Church, Oxford
St Cross Church is a church in central Oxford, England, to the northeast of the centre.The church is located on St Cross Road just south of Holywell Manor. Also close by is Holywell Cemetery.- Church history :...
, Holywell, Oxford (depicted in the opening collection of letters and diary entries in Busman's Honeymoon
Busman's Honeymoon
Busman's Honeymoon is a 1937 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her eleventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It is the fourth and last novel to feature Harriet Vane.-Plot introduction:...
).
The Wimseys go on honeymoon to Talboys, a house in east Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
near where the young Harriet's father was a country doctor, which she has loved from childhood and which Peter has bought for her as a wedding present. There, they find the body of the previous owner, and spend their honeymoon solving the case, thus having the eponymous Busman's Honeymoon
Busman's Honeymoon
Busman's Honeymoon is a 1937 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her eleventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It is the fourth and last novel to feature Harriet Vane.-Plot introduction:...
.
Over the next five years, the Wimseys have three sons: Bredon Delagardie Peter Wimsey (born in October 1936 in the story "The Haunted Policeman"); Roger Wimsey (born 1938), and Paul Wimsey (born 1940). (Note that in A Presumption of Death
A Presumption of Death
A Presumption of Death is a mystery novel by Jill Paton Walsh, based loosely on The Wimsey Papers by Dorothy L. Sayers. The Wimsey Papers were a series of articles published by Sayers during World War II, purporting to be letters written between the various Wimseys during the war A Presumption of...
the second son is called Paul, because in the wartime publications of The Wimsey Papers Dorothy Sayers called him that.) It may be presumed that Paul is named after Lord Peter's maternal uncle Paul Delagardie. "Roger" is an ancestral Wimsey name. (Sayers told friends orally that Harriet and Peter were to eventually have five children in all.)
In the Wimsey story, the 1942 short story "Talboys", Peter and Harriet are enjoying rural domestic bliss with their three sons when Bredon, their first-born, is accused of the theft of prize peaches from the neighbour's tree. Peter and the accused set off to investigate and, of course, prove Bredon's innocence.
Fictional bibliography
Wimsey is described as having authored numerous books, among them the following fictitious works:- Notes on the Collecting of Incunabula
- The Murderer's Vade-Mecum
The stories
Dorothy Sayers wrote 11 Wimsey novels and a number of short stories featuring Wimsey and his family (including Inspector Parker). Other recurring characters include solicitor Murbles, barrister Sir Impey Biggs (who defends both Denver and Harriet Vane when each is tried for murder), newshound Salcombe Hardy, and city whizz the Honourable Freddy Arbuthnot, who finds himself entangled in the case in the first of the Wimsey books, 1923's Whose Body?Whose Body?
Whose Body? is a 1923 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, which introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.-Plot introduction:Lord Peter is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect, and investigates...
.
Sayers wrote no more Wimsey murder mysteries (and only one story involving him) after the outbreak of the Second World War. In one of the Wimsey Papers (a series of fictionalised commentaries in the form of mock letters between members of the Wimsey family), there is a reference to Harriet's difficulty in continuing to write murder mysteries at a time when European dictators were openly committing mass murders with impunity; this seems to have reflected Sayers' own wartime feeling. The Wimsey Papers included a reference to Wimsey and Bunter setting out during the war on a secret mission of espionage in Europe (pointing to the possibility of a spy thriller featuring them, which was never written).
The only occasion when Sayers returned to Wimsey was the 1942 short story "Talboys". The war at that time devastating Europe got only a single oblique reference. Though Sayers lived until 1957, she never again took up the Wimsey books after this final effort. In effect, rather than killing off her detective, as Conan Doyle unsuccessfully tried with his, Sayers pensioned Wimsey off to a happy, satisfying old age. Thus, Peter Wimsey remained forever fixed on the background of inter-war England, and the books are nowadays often read for their evocation of that period as much as for the intrinsic detective mysteries (as Sherlock Holmes is often read for the distinctive late Victorian atmosphere of his background).
Social satire
Many episodes in the Wimsey books express a mild satire of the British class system, in particular in depicting the relationship between Wimsey and Bunter, the two of them clearly being the best and closest of friends, yet Bunter invariably punctilious in using "my lord" even when they are alone, and "his lordship" in company. In a brief passage written from Bunter's point of view in "Busman's HoneymoonBusman's Honeymoon
Busman's Honeymoon is a 1937 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her eleventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It is the fourth and last novel to feature Harriet Vane.-Plot introduction:...
" Bunter is seen, even in the privacy of his own mind, to be thinking of his employer as "His Lordship". Wimsey and Bunter even mock the Jeeves and Wooster relationship.
However, in "Whose Body?
Whose Body?
Whose Body? is a 1923 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, which introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.-Plot introduction:Lord Peter is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect, and investigates...
" it is seen that when Wimsey is caught by a severe recurrence of his WWI shell-shock and nightmares, being taken care of by Bunter, the two of them revert to being "Major Wimsey" and "Sergeant Bunter". In that role, Bunter - sitting at the bedside of the sleeping Wimsey - is seen to mutter affectionately "Bloody little fool!"
In "The Vindictive Story of the Footsteps That Run," the staunchly democratic Doctor Hartman invites Bunter to sit down to eat together with himself and Wimsey, at the doctor's modest apartment. Wimsey does not object, but Bunter strongly does: "If I may state my own preference, sir, it would be to wait upon you and his lordship in the usual manner". Whereupon Wimsey remarks: "Bunter likes me to know my place"
At the conclusion of Strong Poison
Strong Poison
Strong Poison is a 1929 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fifth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.-Plot introduction:It is in Strong Poison that Lord Peter first meets Harriet Vane, an author of police fiction. The immediate problem is that she is on trial for her life, charged with murdering her former...
, Inspector Parker asks "What would one naturally do if one found one's water-bottle empty?" (a point of crucial importance in solving the book's mystery). Wimsey promptly answers "Ring the bell." Whereupon Miss Murchison, the indefatigable investigator employed by Wimsey for much of this book, comments "Or, if one wasn't accustomed to be waited on, one might use the water from the bedroom jug."
Dramatic adaptations
The novel Busman's Honeymoon was originally a stage play by Sayers and her friend Muriel St. Clare Byrne.Some of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels were made into two television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
productions by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. Lord Peter Wimsey was played by Ian Carmichael
Ian Carmichael
Ian Gillett Carmichael, OBE was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.-Early life:Carmichael was born in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School, before training as an actor at RADA...
in a series of independent serials that ran from 1972 to 1975 and adapted five novels, and by Edward Petherbridge
Edward Petherbridge
Edward Petherbridge is a British actor. Among his many roles, he portrayed Lord Peter Wimsey in several screen adaptations of Dorothy L...
in 1987, wherein the three major Wimsey/Vane novels were dramatised. Harriet was played by Harriet Walter
Harriet Walter
Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE is a British actress.-Personal life:She is the niece of renowned British actor Sir Christopher Lee, as the daughter of his elder sister Xandra Lee. On her father's side she is a great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The TimesShe was educated at...
. The BBC was unable to secure the rights to turn Busman's Honeymoon into a proposed fourth adaptation of the planned 13-episode series. Unable to adapt Honeymoon, the series was trimmed to ten episodes and was transmitted under the title A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery. Both the 1970s productions and the 1987 series are now available on videotape and DVD.
Edward Petherbridge
Edward Petherbridge
Edward Petherbridge is a British actor. Among his many roles, he portrayed Lord Peter Wimsey in several screen adaptations of Dorothy L...
also played Wimsey in the UK production of the Busman's Honeymoon play staged at the Lyric Hammersmith
Lyric Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
in 1988 (it also toured in the North of England), with the role of Harriet being taken by his real life spouse, Emily Richard
Emily Richard
Emily Richard is a British actress and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.One of three sisters, Richard attended drama school in London in 1966 aged 18, but she was asked to leave after a year as she was "too timid". She then sold programmes in theatres in London's West End...
.
Ian Carmichael
Ian Carmichael
Ian Gillett Carmichael, OBE was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.-Early life:Carmichael was born in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School, before training as an actor at RADA...
also starred as Wimsey in radio adaptations of the novels made by the BBC, all of which have been available on cassette and CD from the BBC Radio Collection
BBC Radio Collection
The BBC Radio Collection was an imprint or record label used for audio books from the British Broadcasting Corporation, mainly of previously broadcast material...
. In the original series, which ran on Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
from 1973–83, no adaptation was made of the seminal Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth in her popular series about aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third featuring crime writer Harriet Vane....
, perhaps because the leading character in this novel is Harriet and not Peter; this was corrected in 2005 when a version specially recorded for the BBC Radio Collection was released starring Carmichael and Joanna David
Joanna David
Joanna David is a British actress, best known for her television work.She was born in Lancaster, England. Her first major television role was as Elinor Dashwood in the BBC's 1971 dramatisation of Sense and Sensibility followed a year later in War and Peace, in which she played Sonya...
. The CD also includes a panel discussion on the novel, the major participants in which are P. D. James
P. D. James
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE, FRSA, FRSL , commonly known as P. D. James, is an English crime writer and Conservative life peer in the House of Lords, most famous for a series of detective novels starring policeman and poet Adam Dalgliesh.-Life and career:James...
and Jill Paton Walsh
Jill Paton Walsh
Jill Paton Walsh, CBE, FRSL is an English novelist and children's writer.Born as Gillian Bliss and educated at St. Michael's Convent, North Finchley, London, she read English Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford...
. Gaudy Night was released as an unabridged audiobook read by Ian Carmichael in 1993.
There was a 1935 British movie of The Silent Passenger
The Silent Passenger
The Silent Passenger is a British black-and-white film made in 1935 at Ealing Studios, London.-Synopsis:A detective mystery in which a lord sets out to prove that a man did not kill his wife's blackmailer....
, in which Lord Peter (played by Peter Haddon
Peter Haddon
Peter Haddon was an English actor born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, England.-Filmography:*The Second Mrs. Tanqueray – Sir George Orreyed*Moulin Rouge...
) solved a mystery on the boat train crossing the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
; the film does not seem to be available on videotape, at least in the United States. Sayers disliked the film. James Brabazon describes it as an "oddity, in which Dorothy's contribution was altered out of all recognition."
The 1940 film The Haunted Honeymoon (US title) or Busman's Honeymoon (UK title), starring Robert Montgomery
Robert Montgomery (actor)
Robert Montgomery was an American actor and director.- Early life :Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery, Jr. in Beacon, New York, then known as "Fishkill Landing", the son of Mary Weed and Henry Montgomery, Sr. His early childhood was one of privilege, since his father was president of the New...
and Constance Cummings
Constance Cummings
Constance Cummings, CBE was an American-born British actress, known for her work on both screen and stage.Born Constance Halverstadt in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Dallas Vernon Halverstadt, a lawyer, and his wife, Kate Logan Cummings, a concert soprano. she began as a stage actress,...
as Lord and Lady Peter, is available on videotape in generic boxes on the secondary market. Any resemblance of its characters and events to those in Busman's Honeymoon is more than coincidental but less than satisfactory to Sayers's fans; the film script simplifies the novel's plot a great deal. (In the TV adaptation of Murder Must Advertise, a movie poster of Robert Montgomery is prominently visible on the wall in the secretaries' office). Sayers refused even to see this movie.
Novels
With year of first publication- Whose Body?Whose Body?Whose Body? is a 1923 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, which introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.-Plot introduction:Lord Peter is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect, and investigates...
(1923) - Clouds of WitnessClouds of WitnessClouds of Witness is a 1926 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the second in her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.It was adapted for television in 1972, as part of a series starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter.-Plot introduction:...
(1926) - Unnatural DeathUnnatural DeathUnnatural Death is a 1927 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her third featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It has also been published in the United States as The Dawson Pedigree.-Plot introduction:...
(1927) - The Unpleasantness at the Bellona ClubThe Unpleasantness at the Bellona ClubThe Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is a 1928 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fourth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.- Plot outline:General Fentiman is found dead at the Bellona Club in London, where his body went unnoticed for some hours. His wealthy sister also passed away the same day and under...
(1928) - Strong PoisonStrong PoisonStrong Poison is a 1929 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fifth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.-Plot introduction:It is in Strong Poison that Lord Peter first meets Harriet Vane, an author of police fiction. The immediate problem is that she is on trial for her life, charged with murdering her former...
(1931) - Five Red HerringsFive Red HerringsFive Red Herrings is a 1931 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. It was retitled Suspicious Characters for its first publication in the United States, but reverted to its original title in subsequent printings....
(1931) - Have His CarcaseHave His CarcaseHave His Carcase is a 1932 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and her second novel in which Harriet Vane appears...
(1932) - Murder Must AdvertiseMurder Must AdvertiseMurder Must Advertise is a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, published in 1933.Most of the action takes place in an advertising agency, a setting with which Sayers was very familiar. One of her advertising colleagues, Bobby Bevan, was the inspiration for the character Mr Ingleby...
(1933) - The Nine TailorsThe Nine TailorsThe Nine Tailors is a 1934 mystery novel by British writer Dorothy L. Sayers, her ninth featuring sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.- Plot introduction :For this novel, set in the Fens, Sayers had to learn about change ringing...
(1934) - Gaudy NightGaudy NightGaudy Night is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth in her popular series about aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third featuring crime writer Harriet Vane....
(1935) - Busman's HoneymoonBusman's HoneymoonBusman's Honeymoon is a 1937 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her eleventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It is the fourth and last novel to feature Harriet Vane.-Plot introduction:...
(1937) - Thrones, DominationsThrones, DominationsThrones, Dominations is a Lord Peter Wimsey murder mystery novel that Dorothy L. Sayers began writing but abandoned, and which remained as fragments and notes at her death. It was completed by Jill Paton Walsh and published in 1998...
(1998; unfinished manuscript completed by Jill Paton Walsh) - A Presumption of DeathA Presumption of DeathA Presumption of Death is a mystery novel by Jill Paton Walsh, based loosely on The Wimsey Papers by Dorothy L. Sayers. The Wimsey Papers were a series of articles published by Sayers during World War II, purporting to be letters written between the various Wimseys during the war A Presumption of...
(2002; by Jill Paton Walsh) - The Attenbury EmeraldsThe Attenbury EmeraldsThe Attenbury Emeralds is the third Lord Peter Wimsey detective novel to be written by Jill Paton Walsh. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton in September 2010.Closely following Lord Peter creator Dorothy L...
(2010; by Jill Paton Walsh)
Short story collections
- Lord Peter Views the BodyLord Peter Views the BodyLord Peter Views the Body, first published in 1928, was the first collection of short stories about Lord Peter Wimsey by Dorothy L. Sayers...
(1928) - Hangman's HolidayHangman's HolidayHangman's Holiday is a collection of short stories, mostly murder mysteries, by Dorothy L. Sayers. This collection, the ninth in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, was first published by Gollancz in 1933 and has been frequently reprinted .-Contents:*Lord Peter Wimsey stories:**"The Image in the...
(1933; also contains non-Wimsey stories) - In the Teeth of the EvidenceIn the Teeth of the EvidenceIn the Teeth of the Evidence is a collection of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers first published by Victor Gollancz in 1939. .The book's title is taken from the first story in the collection.-Contents:*Lord Peter Wimsey stories:...
(1939; also contains non-Wimsey stories) - Striding FollyStriding FollyStriding Folly is a collection of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.First published in 1972, it contains the final three Lord Peter stories. The first two, "Striding Folly" and "The Haunted Policeman", were previously published in Detection Medley , an anthology of...
(1972) - Lord PeterLord PeterLord Peter is a collection of short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.First published in 1972 , it includes all the short stories about Lord Peter written by Dorothy L...
(1972; see the article for complete list of stories.)
In addition there are
- The Wimsey PapersThe Wimsey PapersThe Wimsey Papers are a series of articles by Dorothy L. Sayers published between November 1939 and January 1940 in The Spectator. They had the form of letters exchanged by members of the Wimsey Family and other characters familiar to readers from the Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, but were in...
, published between Nov. 1939 and Jan. 1940 in The SpectatorThe SpectatorThe Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
Magazine—a series of mock letters by members of the Wimsey family, being in effect fictionalised commentaries on life in England at the inception of the war.
Books about Lord Peter by other authors
- The Wimsey Family (1977) by C. W. Scott-GilesWilfrid Scott-GilesCharles Wilfred Scott-Giles was an English officer of arms.Charles Wilfrid Giles was educated at Emanuel School and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he read history between 1919 and 1922...
ISBN 0-06-013998-6 - Lord Peter Wimsey Cookbook (1981) by Elizabeth Bond Ryan and William J. Eakins ISBN 0-89919-032-4
- Thrones, DominationsThrones, DominationsThrones, Dominations is a Lord Peter Wimsey murder mystery novel that Dorothy L. Sayers began writing but abandoned, and which remained as fragments and notes at her death. It was completed by Jill Paton Walsh and published in 1998...
(1998) completed by Jill Paton Walsh - The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion (2002) by Stephan P. Clarke ISBN 0-89296-850-8 published by The Dorothy L. Sayers Society.
- Conundrums for the Long Week-End : England, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Lord Peter Wimsey (2000) by Robert Kuhn McGregor, Ethan Lewis ISBN 0-87338-665-5
- A Presumption of DeathA Presumption of DeathA Presumption of Death is a mystery novel by Jill Paton Walsh, based loosely on The Wimsey Papers by Dorothy L. Sayers. The Wimsey Papers were a series of articles published by Sayers during World War II, purporting to be letters written between the various Wimseys during the war A Presumption of...
, (2002) (novel by Jill Paton Walsh, based loosely on The Wimsey Papers) - The Attenbury EmeraldsThe Attenbury EmeraldsThe Attenbury Emeralds is the third Lord Peter Wimsey detective novel to be written by Jill Paton Walsh. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton in September 2010.Closely following Lord Peter creator Dorothy L...
(September 2010) by Jill Paton Walsh
As a footnote, Lord Peter Wimsey has also been included by the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....
as a member of the Wold Newton family
Wold Newton family
The Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of crossover fiction developed by the science fiction writer Philip José Farmer...
; and Laurie R. King
Laurie R. King
Laurie R. King is an American author best known for her detective fiction. Among her books are the Mary Russell series of historical mysteries, featuring Sherlock Holmes as her mentor and later partner, and a series featuring Kate Martinelli, a fictional lesbian San Francisco, California, police...
's detective character Mary Russell meets up with Lord Peter at a party in the novel A Letter of Mary
A Letter of Mary
A Letter of Mary is the third in the Mary Russell mystery series of novels by Laurie R. King.-Plot summary:August 1923. All is quiet in the Holmes household in Sussex as Mary Russell works on academic research while Sherlock Holmes conducts malodorous chemistry experiments...
.
