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In this anthology, renowned murder mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers tackles faith, doubt, human nature, and the most dramatic story ever told.
For almost a century, a series of labyrinthine murder mysteries have kept fans turning pages hungrily as Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane discover whodunit, again and again.
Detective novel enthusiasts may not know that for almost as many years, Christian thinkers have appreciated the same Dorothy L. Sayers for her acumen as an essayist, playwright, apologist, and preeminent translator of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Now, for the first time, an anthology brings together the best of both worlds. The selections uncover the gospel themes woven throughout Sayers’s popular fiction as well as her religious plays, correspondence, talks, and essays. Clues dropped throughout her detective stories reveal an attention to matters of faith that underlies all her work.
Those who know Sayers from her nonfiction writings may wonder how she could also write popular genre fiction. Sayers, like her friend G. K. Chesterton, found murder mysteries a vehicle to explore the choices characters make between good and evil. Along with C. S. Lewis and the other Inklings, with whom she maintained a lively correspondence, Sayers used her popular fiction to probe deeper questions. She addressed not only matters of guilt and innocence, sin and redemption, but also the cost of war, the role of the conscience, and the place of women in society.
None of these themes proved any hindrance to spinning a captivating yarn. Her murder mysteries are more reminiscent of Jane Austen than Arthur Conan Doyle, with all the tense interpersonal exploration of the modern novel.
View Table of ContentsBooks like this one are great tools for students and teachers. Forget that statement. It sounds much too serious. This book is great fun to read and is packed full of plenty that will nurture the soul and create an appetite for reading more of Dorothy Sayers.
For those who only have heard of Dorothy Sayers, this volume is a wonderful introduction to her broad range of writings, and her acute thinking about theology and art. For those who have read her works, it is a wonderful review that serves to connect the dots between her different genres of work. For all of us, this work gives us a chance to think along with one of the great theological minds of the twentieth century.
This is the kind of book that will appeal to researchers, educators, Christians, theologians, atheists, and actually everyone – since each of these chapter themes touches on the very thing that makes us human beings – and spiritual beings.
An excellent book taking excerpts from Sayers' writing on many topics, both religious and not. Each chapter revolves around a specific theme and they all include selections from the Lord Peter mysteries. They also include a broad range of other writings from letters to speeches and essays. There is a short biography as an introduction and each selection is introduced with information about context or source.
That Sayers’s vibrant imagination and use of language drew censure from the establishment males of the Church recalled the ridicule and oversight of the poems and homilies of Gerard Manley Hopkins by his superiors, as recounted in the Hopkins volume in the same Plough series as this work… This important book raises Sayers to a contemporary platform beyond her mystery writings with a message as vibrant now as in the past century.
Ms. Sayers’ mysteries are some of my favorite books. I was happy to read this book as I never knew the rest of the story. Sharing excerpts from her work, this book educates on how religion, atheism and society were meticulously woven into her stories and essays. I found this book to be interesting and enlightening.
What a beautiful book written by our favorite author who shares with us different selections of her works. So well written for our pleasure, to take you on an engaging journey through her works, tackling some of the hard subjects. This book is simply amazing and a great addition to your library.
I laughed a lot as I read The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers because, as a retired clergyman I had come to some of the same conclusions about religion in my generation as Sayers did in hers considering she was born in 1893.… What she says to us today has hardly evaporated into history. Her insights touch us as well as her love of word meanings and philosophical insights.
I found myself re-reading particular sentences and paragraphs attempting to grasp her mindset, which caused me to reflect on my own beliefs, outlook on life, and the future of our country as a whole. Dorothy's writings are direct and the reader quickly realizes that she has little concern whether her opinions are shared or not. How would I describe the writings of Dorothy L. Sayers – insightful, eccentric, bold, heartfelt, and God-based.
A Panegyric for Dorothy L. Sayers by C. S. Lewis
Chronology
