SPEAKER_00
0:12
Welcome
to
Mystery
Books
Podcast.
I'm
Mystery
Author
Sarah
Rosette.
This
is
season
six,
episode
six,
and
it's
all
about
Dorothy
L.
Sayers.
We're
closing
out
this
season
of
Mystery
Books
Podcast
with
Dorothy
L.
Sayers,
one
of
the
Queens
of
Crime.
I've
already
done
a
podcast
about
one
of
Dorothy
L.
Sayers'
books.
I
will
link
to
it.
That
was
The
Unpleasantness
at
the
Bologna
Club.
And
in
that
episode,
I
talk
a
lot
about
her
writing,
her
writing
style,
about
Lord
Peter
Whimsey,
about
the
tone
of
the
books.
So
I
will
link
to
that
if
you're
interested
in
that
aspect
of
Dorothy
Sayers.
But
for
this
episode,
we're
going
to
go
with
a
higher
level
view
and
look
at
her
overall
career
and
sort
of
what
she
did
overall
throughout
her
life.
So
a
little
background
on
Dorothy
Sayers.
She
was
born
in
Oxford
in
1893.
She
was
excellent
at
languages,
and
she
graduated
with
first
class
honors
in
medieval
French
from
Oxford.
Another
interesting
thing
about
her
is
that
before
her
writing
career
took
off,
she
worked
as
an
advertising
copywriter,
and
she
put
those
experiences
to
good
use
later
on
in
her
book
Murder
Must
Advertise.
So
if
you
want
an
inside
look
at
the
world
of
advertising
in
the
1930-ish
time
period
in
London,
have
a
look
at
that
book.
Some
other
interesting
things
about
her,
she
was
one
of
the
founding
members
of
the
Detection
Club.
Now,
this
was
a
very
prestigious
group
of
authors
came
together
and
it
included
Agatha
Christie,
G.K.
Chesterson,
and
they
co-founded
the
Detection
Club,
and
they
wanted
to
elevate
the
genre
of
crime
writing
and
promote
fair
play
in
their
stories.
So
a
lot
of
people
looked
down
on
crime
novels
at
this
time,
saying,
you
know,
that
they
weren't
great
literature
or
they
weren't
valuable.
And
I
think
this
was
one
thing
they
did
to
promote
crime
fiction.
Now,
Dorothy
Sayers
wrote
a
really
funny
oath
that
the
new
members
had
to
take.
I'm
going
to
read
you
a
little
bit
of
it
because
it
is
so
entertaining.
The
oath
was,
quote,
Do
you
promise
that
your
detectives
shall
well
and
truly
detect
the
crimes
presented
to
them
using
those
wits
which
may
please
you
to
bestow
upon
them
and
not
placing
reliance
on
nor
making
use
of
divine
revelation,
feminine
intuition,
mumbo
jumbo,
jiggery
pokery,
coincidence,
or
the
act
of
God.
So
that
was
the
main
part
of
the
oath.
But
they
also
had
to
promise
never
to
conceal
a
vital
clue
from
the
reader
and
to
honor
the
king's
English,
which
I
think
those
are
those
are
great
um
add-ons.
And
then
if
you
took
the
oath
and
you
didn't
keep
your
promises,
curses
were
going
to
be
called
down
upon
you,
and
they
were
may
other
writers
anticipate
your
plots,
may
your
publishers
do
you
down
in
your
contracts,
may
strangers
sue
you
for
libel,
may
your
pages
swarm
with
misprints,
and
may
your
sales
continually
diminish.
And
that
is
frightening
stuff
indeed
for
writers.
Another
interesting
thing
about
Sayers
is
that
uh
after
she
wrote
mysteries
early
on
in
her
career,
and
then
later
in
her
career,
she
shifted
to
more
religious
themes.
She
wrote
a
cycle
of
radio
plays
called
The
Man
Born
to
Be
King,
and
it
was
about
the
life
of
Jesus
Christ.
And
then
she
also
translated
uh
Dante's
Divine
Comedy.
She
considered
that
to
be
her
most
significant
work.
So
let's
talk
about
some
of
her
other
things
that
she
published.
She
did
detective
novels.
Her
most
famous
character
is,
of
course,
Lord
Peter
Whimsey.
He's
an
aristocratic
sleuth,
and
there's
11
novels
and
many
short
stories
with
him
as
the
main
character.
She
also
did
many
plays,
some
of
those
religious,
and
some
of
them
were
performed
in
cathedrals
and
broadcast
on
the
BBC.
And
she
was
a
very
good
literary
critic.
She
wrote
essays
and
literary
criticism.
Now,
there's
a
couple
of
themes
that
come
up
again
and
again
in
her
books.
One
of
them
is
intellectual
curiosity
and
problem
solving.
And
you
see
that
in
the
Lord
Peter
Whimsey
books.
He's
very
much
like
Albert
Campion.
He
seems
to
be
foolish,
seems
to
be
a
fop,
but
underneath
it
all,
he's
actually
very
smart
and
intelligent.
And
he's
using
logic
and
deduction
to
figure
out
what
has
happened,
the
truth
behind
the
surface,
the
truth
of
the
mystery,
what
is
really
going
on.
Another
one
of
the
themes
that
come
up
again
and
again
in
her
books
is
social
commentary.
And
I
you
can
see
this
in
the,
especially
in
the
review
of
the
unpleasantness
at
the
Bologna
Club.
It's
very
much
a
commentary
on
war,
the
effects
of
PTSD,
and
the
effects
of
that
on
society
and
family.
And
I
read
it,
uh,
there
was
some
stuff
going
on
in
the
world,
and
I
was
like,
wow,
this
feels
very
contemporary,
because
some
of
those
issues
we're
still
dealing
with
them.
And
then
a
third
theme
would
be
the
contrast
and
interplay
between
faith
and
reason.
She
was
a
devout
Christian
and
she
explored
this
contrast
between
having
faith
and
also
having
intelligence,
which
makes
so
much
sense
because
intelligence
and
deep
thinking
were
very
important
to
her.
And
so
it
would
make
sense
that
she
would
explore
this
in
her
writing.
So
I'll
just
mention
a
couple
of
her
books
that
are
very
well
known.
Whose
Body
was
her
first
Lord
Peter
Whimsey
book.
It
introduces
Lord
Peter
Whimsey
and
has
kind
of
the
light
mystery
tone.
There's
lots
of
great
dialogue,
especially
between
Whimsy
and
Bunter,
his
gentleman's
gentleman.
Then
there's
Drong
Poison,
and
that
is
the
introduction
of
Harriet
Vane,
who
is
Whimsy's
equal
and
his
love
interest.
And
over
the
course
of
the
series,
they
become
closer.
And
then
there's
uh
Gaudy
Knight,
is
probably,
I
would
say
that's
probably
her
most
famous
book.
It's
set
at
an
Oxford
College
and
explores
challenges
women
faced
in
academia
in
that
time
time
period.
So
if
you're
interested
in
Dorothy
Sayers
and
you
don't
know
where
to
start,
I
actually
wouldn't
recommend
starting
with
Who's
Body
because
that's
that
is
the
first
in
the
series.
So
if
you're
one
of
those
people
who
must
start
with
the
first
book,
by
all
means
do
it.
But
I
found
Who's
Body
a
little
hardgoing.
So
I
would
say
probably
one
of
the
other
books
later
in
the
series,
maybe
The
Unpleasantness
at
the
Bologna
Club
or
Murder
Miss
Advertise.
Those
are
still
pretty
early
in
the
series,
and
you
can
get
a
feel
for
all
the
characters,
and
then
um
go
on
from
there
or
go
back
and
read
Who's
Body
later.
So
that
is
a
quick
overview
of
Dorothy
Sayers.
So
I
will
wrap
this
season
up
here
and
I
will
get
back
to
writing
books
because
I
know
that
many
of
you
are
waiting
for
those
books.
So
I
don't
want
to
spend
too
long
on
the
podcast.
But
I
do
hope
you've
enjoyed
this
podcast
and
it's
given
you
some
new
possibilities
for
your
to
be
red
pile.
And
if
you've
enjoyed
it,
I
hope
you'll
tell
a
fellow
mystery
reader
about
it.
If
you
can't
get
enough
of
1920s
Who
Done
It,
check
out
my
High
Society
Lady
Detective
series.
It's
available
in
ebook,
audio,
or
print,
and
you
can
find
that
at
Sarah
Rosettebooks.com.
Happy
sleuthing,
and
I'll
see
you
next
time.
