Five Red Herrings

Dorothy L Sayers was born on the 13th June 1893 in Oxford.

Her early years were spent in the Fens of East Anglia, where her father served as rector.

In 1912, she won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, to study Modern Languages and Medieval Literature. At the time women could not officially be granted degrees but she was among the first to receive her Master of Arts when the policy was belatedly changed in 1920.

Her career began as a copywriter for S H Benson, the advertising agency, from 1922 to 1931. She is credited with very successful campaigns for Colman’s Mustard and Guiness.

Alongside her career in advertising, where she gained several useful writing skills, was her sparkling literary career. Her most famous creation, the scholarly detective Lord Peter Wimsey, first appeared in 1923 with ‘Whose Body?’ Over the course of eleven novels and several short story collections she helped elevate the detective story from a puzzle to a work of both social commentary and psychological depth.

Her later career centred on religious drama and translation. She also wrote the very popular but also controversial radio play cycle on the life of Christ; ‘The Man Born to Be King in 1941. Her final years were spent on a monumental translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, completing ‘Inferno’ and ‘Purgatorio’ before her death.

Dorothy L Sayers died suddenly of heart failure on the 17th December 1957 in Witham, Essex. She was 64.

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