Sayers, Dorothy Leigh

(1893-1957)

   Born in Oxford, the daughter of a clergyman, she graduated with a first class honors degree in modern languages from Somerville College, Oxford, in 1915, and from 1916 to 1931 she worked as a copy writer in an advertising agency. Her Opus 1 (1916)-a collection of poems-was followed by Catholic Tales and Christian Songs (1918). The first of her famous detective stories, Whose Body?, featuring the dashing, witty aristocrat-detective Lord Peter Wimsey, was published in 1923. Her anthology of the detective story, Omnibus of Crime, was published in 1929. Between 1949 to 1962 she published a translation, from the Italian of Dante's The Divine Comedy, and her copious notes make the reading of this classic invaluable. One of her several plays, Man Born to Be King (1941), with Christ speaking modern English, broadcast on children's radio, produced a storm of protest. She received an honorary doctor of literature from Durham University in 1950. She died at Witham, Essex, of heart failure. Some of her other poems: "Devil to Pay," "The English War," "The Song of Roland," "War Cat."

   Sources: Biography of Dorothy L. Sayers (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dlsayers.htm). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Dorothy L Sayers, Writer and Theologian (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/19.html). Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Opus 1 (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sayers/opi/dls-opi.html). Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Microsoft Encarta 2006 (DVD). Microsoft Corporation, 2006. Other Men's Flowers. A.P. Wavell, ed. Jonathan Cape, 1990. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of War Poetry. Kenneth Baker, ed. Faber and Faber, 1996. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Treasury of Christian Poetry. Lorraine Eitel, ed. Fleming H. Revell, 1982. The Triumphant Cat. Walter Payne, ed. Carrol and Graf, 1993.