Thus saying, Sayers turned her attention to her early loves, medieval and religious literature, spending her remaining years lecturing on and translating Dante (see Vol. She stated in 1947 that she would write no more mysteries, that she wrote detective fiction only when she was young and in need of money. By the late 1930s, Sayers had apparently tired of writing detective fiction. All but one of Sayers's mysteries feature Lord Peter Wimsey. The Nine Tailors is the 11th book in the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, but you may enjoy the series by reading the books in any order. Although Sayers essentially followed the classic form in her detective fiction-a formula in which the plot assumes a greater importance than do the characters-Sayers maintained that a detective hero's greatness depended on how effectively the character was portrayed. Perhaps her most famous Wimsey mystery was The Nine Tailors (1934). For the next dozen or so years, Sayers wrote prolifically about Wimsey, creating in the process what many critics of the genre consider to be the finest detective novels in the English language. She was president of the Modern Language Association from 1939 to 1945 and of the Detection Club in the 1950s.Īround 1920 Sayers developed the idea for her detective hero Lord Peter Wimsey, and she soon published her first mystery, Whose Body? (1923), in which Lord Peter is introduced. Sayers also worked as a copywriter for a major advertising firm in London.

Her early literary work was in poetry she published several volumes and served as an editor for the journal Oxford Poetry from 1917 to 1919. During that period, Sayers worked as an instructor of modern languages at Hull High School for Girls in Yorkshire and as a reader for a publisher in Oxford. Sayers was born in Oxford and attended Somerville College, where she received a B.A. Dorothy Sayers's impressive reputation as a contemporary master of the classic detective story is eclipsed only by Agatha Christie's.

The nine tailors by dorothy l sayers