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Library | Material Type | Call Number | Child Count | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
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Searching... South | Book | 823.9 SAYERS | 1 | Non-fiction Collection | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... South | Book | B SA | 1 | Biography Collection | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
"C. S. Lewis said that Dorothy L. Sayers would be acclaimed as one of the great letter-writers of the twentieth century. His opinion is triumphantly confirmed in this collection of letters spanning Sayers's childhood and career as a detective novelist." "Her letters to family, friends, and professional colleagues paint a vivid portrait of a serious, determined, and often very funny writer - not just the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey and the greatest detective novelist of the golden age, but also a poet, a translator, and ultimately a playwright." "There are also letters that make for painful reading: those to the man she loved, John Cournos, who refused to marry her because he didn't believe in marriage and didn't want children, yet soon after his move to America, married a woman with children of her own; and those pouring out her frustrated love to the illegitimate son whom she could not acknowledge publicly." "Sayers reveals herself candidly in her personal letters as a genial, amusing, and loyal friend, but also as the woman who "regarded the intellect as androgynous - neither male or female, but human" and took exuberant pleasure in using it well. Her letters bear the imprint of her vigorous mind, reflecting the social, cultural, and religious issues in which she took a passionate interest."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
Best known as the creator of the enduringly popular sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, Sayers gives us glimpses of her life in this selection of vivid and often entertaining correspondence. This collection, which comprises only a fraction of the letters Sayers left, follows the author from her youth--she is only five when she writes the first, remarkably articulate, letter here--through the period of her fame as a mystery writer who is just beginning the religious works of her later years. Throughout, Sayers presents herself as an intriguing combination of reticence (""I never can write about my feelings"") and brashness (""I really am a vulgar child""). Intelligent and a keen observer of her surroundings, she demonstrates the ability to sketch character and setting long before she pens her first novel. She does not hesitate to turn her lively sense of humor on herself, as when she notes that her unsuccessful verse translation of the Song of Roland sounds well enough ""chanted aloud in the bath-room."" Sayers taps all of these abilities to turn out controlled and for the most part upbeat letters, even when she is riding out her infatuation with writer John Cournos, struggling to establish her financial independence, making living arrangements for the illegitimate son she bore and ""adopted"" but never acknowledged, and coping with a husband who is given to ""odd fits of temper."" Fans of Sayers's mystery writing will particularly relish some of the later entries that show the author at work: for example, those to Dr. Eusatce Barton sorting out the details of their collaborative novel, The Documents in the Case, and those touching on the work it takes to get the play Busman's Honeymoon to the stage. Absorbing reading on its own, and a worthy companion to Reynolds's biographical Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul (1993.) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Reynolds has written two biographical works on the English detective novelist Sayers (1893-1957) and also completed the translation of Dante's Inferno begun by Sayers at the end of her life. This book is the first of two volumes of Sayers's correspondence, selected and edited by Reynolds, with an introduction by P.D. James. The volume begins with Sayers's childhood letters to friends and family, follow her to the Godolphin School and to Oxford, and then chronicle her years of teaching, working in an advertising agency, bearing a child out of wedlock, getting married, and starting a writing career. Readers of Sayers's fiction (e.g., Murder Must Advertise, 1933) will enjoy learning about events in her life that made their way into her fiction, and they will not be surprised to find that Sayers was quite a literate and lucid letter writer. Recommended for literature collections and where there is an interest in the writer.Denise Johnson, Bradley Univ. Lib., Peoria, Ill. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.