"As my Whimsy takes me" is the family motto of Lord Peter Death (yes, you read that right, though some pronounce it "deeth") Bredon Wimsey, second son of the 15th Duke of Denver, Etonian and Oxonian, World War I veteran, and one of the great amateur detectives of classic British crime fiction. The creation of Dorothy L. Sayers, herself an Oxonian, he is the protagonist of 11 novels and over 20 short stories, still popular more than a century after his first appearance in 1923. Now that they are coming into the public domain in the U.S., Distributed Proofreaders volunteers are turning them into e-books for Project Gutenberg, free for everyone to enjoy.
Murder isn't whimsical, of course, but Lord Peter often is - he is as famous for his self-deprecating wit as he is for his crime-solving genius. He's also athletic, charming, well-read, musical, successful with the ladies (though not classically handsome) - and troubled. A victim of the "shell shock" that traumatized so many soldiers, he is prone to bouts of deep depression. He survived thanks to his loyal sergeant Bunter, who became his valet and highly competent assistant in crime detection.
Lord Peter first appeared in Whose Body? (1923), in which an unidentified man is found dead in someone's bathtub, wearing only a pair of pince-nez. The novel was both popular and well received by the critics. Sayers later said that it disappointed her own expectations - she had wanted to write a novel with more depth - but its enduring popularity stems from her genius at creating an escapist delight with an unforgettable detective.
Crossword grid from Lord Peter Views the Body
Lord Peter's next appearance was in Clouds of Witness (1926), where his elder brother, the 16th Duke of Denver, becomes a suspect in the murder of their sister's fiancé. Though Lord Peter is still not as fully formed as a character as he would be later on, Sayers once again demonstrates the excellent storytelling powers that made this book a bestseller.
Unnatural Death (1927), prepared by our colleagues at Distributed Proofreaders Canada, involves the death of an elderly cancer victim and a complex inheritance issue, complete with a genealogical chart. Lord Peter, who so often sees things the police don't, wonders if she really died of cancer. An inheritance and a cause-of-death issue also feature in The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928), in which a 90-year-old retired general is found dead at his club.
Sayers then varied her output to write a collection of 12 entertaining and ingenious short stories, Lord Peter Views the Body (1928). Her own whimsy (with a touch of the macabre) abounds here, with wonderfully intriguing titles like "The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers" and "The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face." One story even includes a fiendishly tricky crossword puzzle containing clues to the crime. You can try to solve it yourself (and the solution is provided at the end).
In the later Wimsey novels, Sayers deepens Lord Peter's character and sets him some personal challenges that help him grow as a human being. Some commentators believe, from the novels and some of her letters, that she had something of a crush on her fictional creation. But by 1937, she was tired of mystery fiction and went back to scholarly work, her first love. She was one of the first women to officially receive her postponed degree from Oxford University in 1920 - she had already graduated in 1915 with first-class honors in medieval French. And after graduation she was one of the editors of several volumes of Oxford Poetry (also prepared by Distributed Proofreaders volunteers and available at Project Gutenberg). In the 1940s and 1950s, she turned her attention from crime fiction to, among other things, translating Dante's Divine Comedy and the medieval French poem The Song of Roland into English. Both translations are well-respected and still in print.
But Sayers will always be linked in popular imagination with her other love - Lord Peter Wimsey. He has spawned films, television and radio series, "fan fiction" sequels, a family history, and even a cookbook. Distributed Proofreaders looks forward to seeing more of Sayers's novels and stories enter the public domain and turning them into freely available e-books.
This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer who also has a crush on Lord Peter.
