Many thanks for this most welcome essay on Dorothy Sayers. I studied Italian literature under her friend and colleague Barbara Reynolds. She told us that after translating the Inferno and Purgatorio, Sayers turned away from the Divine Comedy, for a little light relief, to the translation of some of Petrarch’s sonnets, and died before completing the greater task. BR then banged the table and said: ‘And there’s a lesson to us all!’ There was only a handful of sleepy students round the table and none of us looked capable of much. But of course it was Reynolds who finished off the translation of Paradiso.
Frances, wow to have studied with Barbara Reynolds! I use her Vita Nuova translation in my courses and always love when she slips in a Sayers reference or two in her introductions. Thanks for this anecdote ✨
That's such a great comment, Frances, thank you. I think you win the prize for best Dorothy Sayers-related story - and as Leslie says below, a lesson to us all if we're putting off translating Petrarch (and doing easy Divine Comedy first). Glad BR took it on!
Thanks for this, Ann. Academia is such a double-edged sword. The education is liberating, but, oh, the politics, not to mention the increasingly brutal standards for intellectual activity, particularly in the humanities. How interesting to think of DLS running into all of this so long ago . The misogyny is underground now, but still there. And her struggle with her inner academic over writing genre fiction is also fascinating. I understand!
It's such a shame that academia is still marred by this, Annette - but that you and others are continuing the fight. There is still snobbery around different types of writing (for scholarly or 'trade' publishing, for example), but I'm glad some of those barriers are becoming less rigid. It took courage for DLS to return to scholarship at an older age!
A new appreciation for her writing as a form of resistance:
" When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room I took a luxurious flat for him in Piccadilly. When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered him an Aubusson carpet.’ "
Great stuff and an excellent complement to Laura's Post which you cite. Very much looking forward to your Book Club entry on Gaudy Night.
Lots here I didn't know—I'm particularly struck by learning that DLS was in the first group to collect their degrees.
You comment on her apparent embarrassment over her fondness for 'lowbrow' crime stories: it strikes me there may have been some compensation/wish-fulfilment in play in Gaudy Night when Harriet learns that the Shrewsbury dons—most of them, anyway—are avid readers of her novels. Though I also think you'd have to be quite the literary snob to brand a novel like GN as lowbrow.
This was a wonderful piece of history. I have just started writing mysteries 4 years ago (at the age of 81) and I want to be as good as Dorothy. I'm so happy to learn so much about her. What an inspiration! (My first book on Amazon: "False Awakenings" by Emma Aragon (pen name).
Thank you Marianna, and that's great you are writing what you love. Sayers herself wondered if it was 'too late' or silly to translate Dante as an older woman, but she loved it and found it hugely rewarding. Congratulations on your book.
What a treat!! Thank you! Sayers probably formed my earliest ideas of what a scholar was via Gaudy Night. This background is lovely.
Also, your mention of Gilbert Murray made me realize that I didn’t know anything about his life, so I wandered on to Wikipedia, which claims that Shaw based one of my favorite of his characters — the Greek scholar in “Major Barbara” — on him. So another small, unexpected treat. Looking forward to the discussion and anything else you write!
Many thanks Maria, I did enjoy thinking about Dorothy's time at Oxford, and how a visit back there to a 'gaudy' (= college party) in 1934 made her think about her student days again, as well as inspiring her novel. I do love everyting I've heard about Gilbert Murray. Daisy Dunn's Not Far From Brideshead is a nice introduction to him from a biography point of view, and he also crops up in Metaphysical Animals which I'm reading at the moment, and admiring greatly as a group biography.
Both books sound intriguing! When I saw his name in your essay I had an instant sense of vague approval, but nothing concrete, which is why I looked a little further. I'm embarrassed to say that I may have conflated him a bit with the OED Murray; my mind associated his name both with Greek scholarship and English dictionaries, which I knew couldn't be right.
Sorry for being a bit absent from Substack over these past months; am hoping to engage more regularly, and to start writing again, soon.
My wife and I both recently finished rereading (and listening 📖🎧) to all of the Sayers books, and now we’re immersed in watching the various tv adaptions. Having your and Laura’s pieces pop up is just perfect.
Thanks, Gabrielle! So pleased to hear that you and your wife are enjoying Sayers's work (I am very impressed by your dedication, and must be such a nice thing to do together). Laura's post is great, and she always inspires me.
There’s something so satisfying about going start to finish with a whole story. We even topped off with the Jill Paton Walsh books! I’m not generally a fan of follow-up books (add ons? I don’t know if there’s a right term.) but the JPW books are mostly excellent and — to me at least—feel like a fitting extension.
We are both working artists and really like having audiobooks in the studio. During the pandemic I listened to all of Ngaio Marsh in order! That was quite a stretch…and my wife did almost all of Christie—all the ones she could find on audio.
To wake up to this essay on a cool Monday, the second day of winter in my corner of the world, was energising. Thank you, Ann. The subject of the granting of degrees to women is a fascinating lens through which to view the social history of women. The evocative photo speaks eloquently of the significance of the occasion.
As a current reader in an online group of The Divine Comedy, I am using Dorothy Sayers’ translation amongst others and can attest to her scholarship and stickability, even if she didn’t make it to the end, as Frances Spalding reminded us in her very interesting comment.
Ah, that's so nice of you Hilary, and I hope the winter there is approaching gently... what a good way of describing the granting of degrees. Oxford and Cambridge were not typical of the UK as a whole, moving (slowly) towards legal equality but they were the places where the future leaders studied, and they wanted to keep it as a boys' club for as long as possible (some things haven't changed). That's so interesting that you're reading Sayers's translation among others, and Frances's comment was just brilliant (translating the Divine Comedy was light relief for Sayers).
Loved the idea of the Mutual Admiration Society. Brilliant. It is many years since I first encountered DLS so thank you for recounting her background. Brave woman to go into crime writing at that time. I look forward to your discussion of Gaudy Night.
(Appalled that Cambridge Uni only awarded degrees to women in 1948. What a shower)
What a shower indeed! Those Cambridge men wanted to hang on to power, I suspect... and yes, Sayers was brave really, so determined to make her own way as a crime writer and refusing to do what others thought she should be doing. Thanks, Ann!
Lovely to read a bit more about Sayers - and looking forward to the Gaudy Night discussion! I feel like it's almost doing the book a disservice to lump it in with the other Wimsey novels as it's quite a different sort of beast really, so many interesting themes and ideas to tease out.
Yes, I admit that I read Gaudy Night first, then a few of the Wimsey 'prequels'... guessing that by 1935 she was enjoying turning Harriet Vane into a fully fledged character in her own right. And as you say, so many themes to explore.
I think the first I read was The Nine Tailors which is another odd one. They are all quite different when you come to look at them more closely, I do wish she'd written more!
In the five years between leaving Somerville and getting her degree Dorothy Sayers taught for a year at Newland High School for Girls in Hull. I find that hard to imagine - even when I was Chair of Governors there fifty years later.
Many thanks for this most welcome essay on Dorothy Sayers. I studied Italian literature under her friend and colleague Barbara Reynolds. She told us that after translating the Inferno and Purgatorio, Sayers turned away from the Divine Comedy, for a little light relief, to the translation of some of Petrarch’s sonnets, and died before completing the greater task. BR then banged the table and said: ‘And there’s a lesson to us all!’ There was only a handful of sleepy students round the table and none of us looked capable of much. But of course it was Reynolds who finished off the translation of Paradiso.
What a great story. And a good lesson to all of us. Thank you, Frances!
Frances, wow to have studied with Barbara Reynolds! I use her Vita Nuova translation in my courses and always love when she slips in a Sayers reference or two in her introductions. Thanks for this anecdote ✨
That's such a great comment, Frances, thank you. I think you win the prize for best Dorothy Sayers-related story - and as Leslie says below, a lesson to us all if we're putting off translating Petrarch (and doing easy Divine Comedy first). Glad BR took it on!
Thanks for this, Ann. Academia is such a double-edged sword. The education is liberating, but, oh, the politics, not to mention the increasingly brutal standards for intellectual activity, particularly in the humanities. How interesting to think of DLS running into all of this so long ago . The misogyny is underground now, but still there. And her struggle with her inner academic over writing genre fiction is also fascinating. I understand!
It's such a shame that academia is still marred by this, Annette - but that you and others are continuing the fight. There is still snobbery around different types of writing (for scholarly or 'trade' publishing, for example), but I'm glad some of those barriers are becoming less rigid. It took courage for DLS to return to scholarship at an older age!
A new appreciation for her writing as a form of resistance:
" When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room I took a luxurious flat for him in Piccadilly. When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered him an Aubusson carpet.’ "
Yes! I agree, Jill, it's a wonderful way of imagining yourself into another world.
Great stuff and an excellent complement to Laura's Post which you cite. Very much looking forward to your Book Club entry on Gaudy Night.
Lots here I didn't know—I'm particularly struck by learning that DLS was in the first group to collect their degrees.
You comment on her apparent embarrassment over her fondness for 'lowbrow' crime stories: it strikes me there may have been some compensation/wish-fulfilment in play in Gaudy Night when Harriet learns that the Shrewsbury dons—most of them, anyway—are avid readers of her novels. Though I also think you'd have to be quite the literary snob to brand a novel like GN as lowbrow.
This was a wonderful piece of history. I have just started writing mysteries 4 years ago (at the age of 81) and I want to be as good as Dorothy. I'm so happy to learn so much about her. What an inspiration! (My first book on Amazon: "False Awakenings" by Emma Aragon (pen name).
Thank you Marianna, and that's great you are writing what you love. Sayers herself wondered if it was 'too late' or silly to translate Dante as an older woman, but she loved it and found it hugely rewarding. Congratulations on your book.
Great to see you pick up writing at 81 years young. A fantastic inspiration for the senior set and I hope there are another 15 novels in you. 😊
Thank you Hilary.
Thank you for the kind mention Ann! What a wonderful essay, so much I didn't know about the amazing DLS
My pleasure Laura! I learned a lot from your lovely post too.
What a treat!! Thank you! Sayers probably formed my earliest ideas of what a scholar was via Gaudy Night. This background is lovely.
Also, your mention of Gilbert Murray made me realize that I didn’t know anything about his life, so I wandered on to Wikipedia, which claims that Shaw based one of my favorite of his characters — the Greek scholar in “Major Barbara” — on him. So another small, unexpected treat. Looking forward to the discussion and anything else you write!
Many thanks Maria, I did enjoy thinking about Dorothy's time at Oxford, and how a visit back there to a 'gaudy' (= college party) in 1934 made her think about her student days again, as well as inspiring her novel. I do love everyting I've heard about Gilbert Murray. Daisy Dunn's Not Far From Brideshead is a nice introduction to him from a biography point of view, and he also crops up in Metaphysical Animals which I'm reading at the moment, and admiring greatly as a group biography.
Both books sound intriguing! When I saw his name in your essay I had an instant sense of vague approval, but nothing concrete, which is why I looked a little further. I'm embarrassed to say that I may have conflated him a bit with the OED Murray; my mind associated his name both with Greek scholarship and English dictionaries, which I knew couldn't be right.
Sorry for being a bit absent from Substack over these past months; am hoping to engage more regularly, and to start writing again, soon.
Among my favourites! Did you know that this super version with Harriet Walter and Edward Petherbridge, is available on YouTube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCpg4HQNe4k
Oh thanks Hephzi, I will treat myself to watching that soon.
What a treat to read this, thank you.
My wife and I both recently finished rereading (and listening 📖🎧) to all of the Sayers books, and now we’re immersed in watching the various tv adaptions. Having your and Laura’s pieces pop up is just perfect.
Thanks, Gabrielle! So pleased to hear that you and your wife are enjoying Sayers's work (I am very impressed by your dedication, and must be such a nice thing to do together). Laura's post is great, and she always inspires me.
There’s something so satisfying about going start to finish with a whole story. We even topped off with the Jill Paton Walsh books! I’m not generally a fan of follow-up books (add ons? I don’t know if there’s a right term.) but the JPW books are mostly excellent and — to me at least—feel like a fitting extension.
We are both working artists and really like having audiobooks in the studio. During the pandemic I listened to all of Ngaio Marsh in order! That was quite a stretch…and my wife did almost all of Christie—all the ones she could find on audio.
Thank you for this ! Brilliant and informative !
That’s so kind of you, thanks!
To wake up to this essay on a cool Monday, the second day of winter in my corner of the world, was energising. Thank you, Ann. The subject of the granting of degrees to women is a fascinating lens through which to view the social history of women. The evocative photo speaks eloquently of the significance of the occasion.
As a current reader in an online group of The Divine Comedy, I am using Dorothy Sayers’ translation amongst others and can attest to her scholarship and stickability, even if she didn’t make it to the end, as Frances Spalding reminded us in her very interesting comment.
Ah, that's so nice of you Hilary, and I hope the winter there is approaching gently... what a good way of describing the granting of degrees. Oxford and Cambridge were not typical of the UK as a whole, moving (slowly) towards legal equality but they were the places where the future leaders studied, and they wanted to keep it as a boys' club for as long as possible (some things haven't changed). That's so interesting that you're reading Sayers's translation among others, and Frances's comment was just brilliant (translating the Divine Comedy was light relief for Sayers).
Loved the idea of the Mutual Admiration Society. Brilliant. It is many years since I first encountered DLS so thank you for recounting her background. Brave woman to go into crime writing at that time. I look forward to your discussion of Gaudy Night.
(Appalled that Cambridge Uni only awarded degrees to women in 1948. What a shower)
What a shower indeed! Those Cambridge men wanted to hang on to power, I suspect... and yes, Sayers was brave really, so determined to make her own way as a crime writer and refusing to do what others thought she should be doing. Thanks, Ann!
Lovely to read a bit more about Sayers - and looking forward to the Gaudy Night discussion! I feel like it's almost doing the book a disservice to lump it in with the other Wimsey novels as it's quite a different sort of beast really, so many interesting themes and ideas to tease out.
Yes, I admit that I read Gaudy Night first, then a few of the Wimsey 'prequels'... guessing that by 1935 she was enjoying turning Harriet Vane into a fully fledged character in her own right. And as you say, so many themes to explore.
I think the first I read was The Nine Tailors which is another odd one. They are all quite different when you come to look at them more closely, I do wish she'd written more!
This was such a treat, thank you!
That's very kind, many thanks.
In the five years between leaving Somerville and getting her degree Dorothy Sayers taught for a year at Newland High School for Girls in Hull. I find that hard to imagine - even when I was Chair of Governors there fifty years later.
That's a great detail, Liz and what a connection! I guess Hull's loss was literature's gain (it made up for it by getting Larkin a bit later).
This was a joy to read, Ann. And great to know more about the gifted DLS.
Many thanks, Jeffrey! Gifted indeed.