Lord Peter Wimsey, the hero of Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective novels, epitomises the glamour and allure of the 1930s whodunnit. Aristocratic, debonair and intellectual, there was nonetheless a darker side to his past. His most famous cases include Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors, The Unpleasantness at the Belladonna Club, Gaudy Night and Have His Carcase.
Amiable Fool About Town
Lord Peter Wimsey is fond of appearing as the quintessential English “silly ass” – a young man with too much time and money, and precious few brains. He has the proper background for a member of the British establishment, including a spell at Oxford, a titled elder brother, the Duke of Denver, and enough wealth not to need a job. Under the amiable facade, however, Wimsey is a ruthlessly sharp intellect, and has adopted the pursuit of murderers as his “job in life” since his family connections make a normal career unnecessary. (He is rather similar to that other famous English aristocrat hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel, in deliberately cultivating an air of well-bred idiocy to divert suspicion from his talents.) He is also employed from time to time by the British Foreign Office as a conveniently deniable diplomatic emissary.
Wimsey’s Past
Despite Wimsey’s apparently idyllic lifestyle, there is a darker side to his life. He was buried alive during bombardment whilst serving as an officer in the First World War, and is still occasionally troubled by nightmares and nervous problems from that time. Paradoxically, though he has dedicated himself to bringing murderers “to justice” he often cannot stomach the form that justice takes, finding himself ambivalent about the death penalty and wracked with guilt about sending people to their death. The depth of Wimsey’s character, developed and elaborated over the series of novels, reflects the literary ability of his creator Dorothy L. Sayers. Sayers was a classical scholar as well as a novelist, and her other works include an unfinished translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Bunter and Harriet
Lord Peter is usually accompanied by his valet, the indefatigably correct Bunter, who an equally turn his hand to the pressing of a suit, the decanting of vintage port, and the chemical investigation of bloodstains. Wimsey’s beloved Harriet Vane first appears in the novel Strong Poison, in which Lord Peter saves her from a false accusation of murder, and falls in love with her. Their rocky romance, impeded on both sides by past feelings and pride, eventually culminates in their engagement at the end of Gaudy Night and marriage in Busman’s Honeymoon. Conventional wisdom would have it that Sayers had fallen in love with her own hero, and introduced Vane to Lord Peter, (who was, like her creator, an intellectual author of detective novels) as a surrogate for herself. Whatever the truth, their relationship allows a much more complex development of character over the series than the unchanging “cardboard cut-outs” which some other detective authors rely on, such as Poirot or Nero Wolfe.
