Sayers, Dorothy L.

Dorothy L. Sayers, in full Dorothy Leigh Sayers, (born June 13, 1893, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.—died Dec. 17, 1957, Witham, Essex), English scholar and writer whose numerous mystery stories featuring the witty and charming Lord Peter Wimsey combined the attractions of scholarly erudition and cultural small talk with the puzzle of detection.

Sayers received a degree in medieval literature from the University of Oxford in 1915; she was one of the first women to graduate from that university. Her first major published work was Whose Body? (1923), a detective novel in which Lord Peter first appeared as a dashing gentleman-scholar. The book was followed by one or two novels a year for about 15 years. Sayers wrote short stories that featured not only Lord Peter but also another detective creation, Montague Egg. She also published an anthology of the detective story, The Omnibus of Crime (1929).

In her later years Sayers turned from detective fiction to writing theological plays and books such as Creed or Chaos? (1947). She made scholarly translations of Dante’s Inferno (1949) and Purgatorio (1955); her translation of the third book, the Paradiso, was incomplete at her death.