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Gaudy Night Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Dorothy L Sayers 9780061043499 Books

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Gaudy Night Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Dorothy L Sayers 9780061043499 Books

Sayers/Wimsey lovers fall into two camps. You either love Harriet Vane, or hate her. She is difficult to like, deliberately so. As she has finally come to admit to herself, she has a raging inferiority complex when dealing with Wimsey, the epitome of everything suave, polished, and veddy, veddy wealthy.

Gaudy Night is disliked by many because Wimsey plays a very small role in it. The story is centered around Harriet and her University days. The women dons are delightful characters, showing Sayers's incisive descriptive skills at her best. This is a lost time; the period in-between the Great Wars, a lifestyle of the privileged that would soon fracture and forever be changed.

This is a mystery - not a murder mystery, for no one dies in it. It's a tale of old pain and cold vengeance. Can you figure out who the culprit is? All the clues are there, but the motivation is key and that is hidden until Wimsey discovers and explains it.

You have to read the HV books in order, which are: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, and Gaudy Night. There are later stories written by Sayers herself as well as Jill Paton Walsh, on their married life together.


Tags : Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries) [Dorothy L. Sayers] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. “<em>Gaudy Night</em> stands out even among Miss Sayers’s novels. And Miss Sayers has long stood in a class by herself.”<br />—<em>Times Literary Supplement</em> The great Dorothy L. Sayers is considered by many to be the premier detective novelist of the Golden Age,Dorothy L. Sayers,Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries),HarperTorch,0061043494,Mystery & Detective - General,Crime & mystery,FICTION Mystery & Detective General,Fiction,Fiction - Mystery Detective,Fiction-Mystery & Detective,MASS MARKET,Mystery & Detective - Traditional British,MysterySuspense

Gaudy Night Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Dorothy L Sayers 9780061043499 Books Reviews

I grew up reading Dorothy Sayers mysteries, so it's hard to be objective about them. They shaped my thinking and I continue to read and appreciate them as an adult. Gaudy Night stands out to me as the novel where she forced the greatest change upon her characters. Their changes were realistic and complex. There are certainly flaws in the way she went about forcing these changes, but even the flaws don't ruin the illusion that Wimsey and Vane are living, breathing humans.
This is my favorite book by Sayers (also check out Murder Must Advertise and Busman's Honeymoon). She brings depth and complexity to her characters, even minor ones; this is a top-quality novel that happens around a mystery, as opposed to a mystery novel. The book takes place primarily at a women's college within a male-dominated university, so it's fascinating from our modern perspective to see the lives of women of different social classes of that era, what the assumptions and stereotypes were and what they were fighting to achieve. Although it's clearly a novel of its time, it doesn't feel dated or slow as some books do many decades after publication.
Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter/Harriet Vane quartet of novels are among my lifelong favorites. I was delighted to find such a handsome new edition...until I actually tried to read them. Misspellings, random capitalizations, endless dumb little errors. I reread these books often, and I don't want to wince in pain every time I do. I'll stick with my old beat-up paperbacks, thanks. Do NOT buy the Bourbon Street Books editions. Ms. Sayers deserves much better than this.
Of the well-known authors from the British Golden Age of mystery fiction, Dorothy Sayers is the most intelligent and scholarly, putting her at the head of an awesome group. For the modern reader, however, she presents difficulties. Books from this era always seem dated. Sayers, by reason of her erudite language and profound immersion in the intellectual culture of the day, dates more severely than the others of the era.
If you are already a fan of Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr, then you should definitely read Dorothy Sayers. But if you have so far only read modern mystery writers, Sayers is NOT the first port of call for your Golden Age experience. You may find Gaudy Night daunting with its slow pace, the quaint (sometimes near impenetrable) language of the cloistered Oxford dons of the 1930s, and the lengthy exploration of characters internal worlds as they introspectively ponder their own motivations. Viewed through modernist eyes, Gaudy Night has far too many characters, far too many words, and far too little action.
On its own terms however, this book is the pinnacle of British Golden Age writing. Most agree it is Sayers' best. It is a literary novel which gives a penetrating insight into women of the era struggling with the conflict between the constraints of traditional feminine roles and the intellectual freedom (and rigor) of academia. And it presents a mystery of satisfying complexity and convincing resolution.
Gaudy Night is the best of its era - when you are ready for it.
A great pleasure to read. I liked the unconventional mystery, I liked the Oxford location, and I liked the daubs of philosophy and character throughout that went a bit deeper than your average golden-ager.
Minus one star for the first two chapters which are full of small-talk with people you'll never read about again. And for the fact that there are about 15 characters referred to as "Miss ___" which can sometimes make it difficult to keep track of who is who. I had a suspicion that it wouldn't matter too much in the end and it didn't, so I wasn't as put off by this as some reviewers were. I just let the names wash over me until I was able to keep the important ones straight and it was fine, the mystery such as it is was still satisfying.
Sinking into this world for a few hours was like a warm bath and I enjoyed it. I highly recommend reading "Strong Poison" by Sayers before this one so you won't be utterly lost about the larger arc of the series.
Sayers/Wimsey lovers fall into two camps. You either love Harriet Vane, or hate her. She is difficult to like, deliberately so. As she has finally come to admit to herself, she has a raging inferiority complex when dealing with Wimsey, the epitome of everything suave, polished, and veddy, veddy wealthy.

Gaudy Night is disliked by many because Wimsey plays a very small role in it. The story is centered around Harriet and her University days. The women dons are delightful characters, showing Sayers's incisive descriptive skills at her best. This is a lost time; the period in-between the Great Wars, a lifestyle of the privileged that would soon fracture and forever be changed.

This is a mystery - not a murder mystery, for no one dies in it. It's a tale of old pain and cold vengeance. Can you figure out who the culprit is? All the clues are there, but the motivation is key and that is hidden until Wimsey discovers and explains it.

You have to read the HV books in order, which are Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, and Gaudy Night. There are later stories written by Sayers herself as well as Jill Paton Walsh, on their married life together.