Customer Reviews

Dorothy L. Sayers: The Complete Stories

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This one is a real gem ! It has one section devoted to non-Lord-Peter-Wimsey adventures and the stories are actually funny and have the most unexpected endings. Lots of fun to read and guess along. It also has the smart salesman, Montague Egg, running around in another section solving crimes. On the whole, a varied experience.

I'm not a huge fan of mysteries; however, Sayers' writing in other fields, such as _The Mind of the Maker_, her book on writing, made me interested in investigating some of her mysteries. I began here rather than try to figure out which of the novels to begin with, and found the stories interesting, entertaining, and thought provoking (not to mention disturbing, from time to time). I didn't manage to complete the book before I had to return it to the library but I'm going to pick up a copy as soon as I can to read the rest of the stories. Sayers' prose sparkles and her wit is top-notch. The stories are awfully short but I'm willing to accept that for the quality of writing that Sayers' provides. Anyone looking for an introduction to Sayers or to mysteries could do a lot worse than this: indeed, I highly recommend this collection of stories to anyone interested in either of those things, or possessed of a cerebral bent. I rarely had the patience to try to solve some of her puzzles but I imagine that there are those who could get quite a bit out of them.

Similar to another reviewer, my introduction to Sayers' works was through The Mind of the Maker. I tried to pick up her fiction at the time, but, as a 19yo college student, just couldn't get "into" it. Now that 15 years have added appreciation beyond standard quick-read bestseller-type mystery books, I recently thought I'd try Sayers again, starting with this book. I was very pleasantly satisfied with the book. As each section, with stories centering around its own investigator, came to an end, I found myself wanting more. Satisfied-but-wanting-more is a good place for an author to leave a reader, in my opinion.

Sayers is witty and clever, trusting her readers to think for themselves, causing them to dig and think a bit for most of the answers, instead of just laying it out. She's also decidedly English, which may be off-putting to some American readers, but in my opinion, only adds to the interest and charm.

I found almost all of the mysteries to be relevant, even in this era of CSI and Criminal Minds. Humanity and humor transcends innovation. It's rather like Jane Austen's novels are still worth a read, even though all her characters travel by horse, and we now use cars.

If you're reading this, you don't need to know that Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series is great. You may want to know that this edition contains the same LPW stories as LORD PETER. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain THE WIMSEY PAPERS (BEING THE WAR-TIME LETTERS AND PAPERS OF THE WIMSEY FAMILY) published in THE SPECTATOR in weekly installments in 1939 and 1940. They're mentioned in Sandoe's intro. Perhaps Harper couldn't get the rights to print them.

This volume also doesn't contain THE WIMSEY FAMILY, highlights from the Wimsey family history written by C. W. Scott-Giles. Granted, it wasn't written by Sayers. However, it was published by Harper & Row and this "complete" edition was also published by Harper. Including THE WIMSEY FAMILY, which is OP and VHTF, would have made this edition a "must have" for LPW fans.

When I heard that Agatha Christie said that her favorite mystery writer
was Dorothy L. Sayers, I avoided Sayers for years. You know the reason:
"You'll just LOVE her..." and you don't.
Then a Peter Wimsey story came on the radio. I listened. I took some books
out of the library; and was soon hooked for life.
I always liked Christie. I LOVE Sayers. Nice to know I was wrong. Nice to
be rewarded, anyway.
The only problem I have with Sayers is that she died and stopped writing; or
she stopped writing and died... Why do the best writers keep doing that?
The worst ones do too, but that is forgivable.

Lord Peter is an interesting aristocrat and detective. He takes on the lost causes and finds his soul mate. Everyone finds it a little strange that he is a detective...

Dorothy L. Sayers was a brilliant, eccentric woman who wrote quirky mystery novels and short stories, edited three huge anthologies of crime stories (plus a much shorter anthology), and translated Dante's DIVINE COMEDY.

Although she could write Fair-Play Puzzle Stories the way her contemporary Agatha Christie usually did, with her short stories Sayers often wrote "mysteries" that have alternative formats that are very different. Chief among them is what can be called the "Premise Story," which is built around the disclosure of some unusual or even weird idea rather than around a normal beginning-to-end plot (for example, WHAT IF ... a murderer hides his victims inside metal and keeps them as "statues"? or WHAT IF ... spies impersonated Lord Peter Wimsey while Lord Peter impersonated someone else? or WHAT IF ... circumstances that SEEM to be a murder mystery turn out to be totally innocent? etc. etc). Such stories, which are akin to the formats of many science fiction works, can be serious or humorous, and Sayers was happy to provide many of these. Examples include "The Bibulous Business of a Matter of Taste," "The Leopard Lady," "The Inspiration of Mr. Budd," "The Milk-Bottles," "Nebuchadnezzar," and many more.

Another format Sayers enjoyed using is what could be called the "Unsolvable Puzzler," where one or more solutions are presented, but there is no way for readers to determine which one (if any) is the correct one. Examples include "Blood Sacrifice," "The Cyprian Cat," "The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face," "Dilemma" (perhaps), and a few others.

On rare occasions, her "mystery" stories are built on the format of Heroic Fantasies or Heroic-Erotic Fantasies (daydreams on paper, akin to Ian Fleming's James Bond stories). Two examples are "The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba," where Lord Peter destroys a huge gang of criminals (as Sherlock Holmes destroyed the gang run by Professor Moriarty) and "The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey," where Lord Peter rescues a woman being tortured by her evil-doctor husband (compare E. C. Bentley's earlier story "The Clever Cockatoo," 1914, where Philip Trent saves a woman who is being secretly drugged by her jealous-doctor husband).

For those who enjoy reading Fair-Play Puzzle Stories, Sayers has several very good ones, some involving Lord Peter and some involving Montague Egg, a wine seller with a great brain. Stories with this format include "Absolutely Elsewhere," "Bitter Almonds," "In the Teeth of the Evidence," "The Professor's Manuscript," and "Striding Folly."

As with nearly all writers, Dorothy Sayers' stories are uneven in quality. Some are really wonderful, and her humor and ingenuity are often amazing. In other cases, a Puzzle is too simple or a Premise is too silly to have much merit and/or improbable coincidences are far too numerous--and the result is quite lame. Occasionally a story is an uneasy mixture of brilliance and ineptness.

Among my favorites are "The Cyprian Cat" (I enjoy Unsolvable Puzzlers), "A Shot at Goal" (a Fair-Play Puzzler involving spelling), "Scrawns" (which is partly a spoof of Gothic Thrillers, akin to Jane Austen's NORTHANGER ABBEY), "Nebuchadnezzar" (which involves a misinterpretation during a game of charades), "The Bibulous Business of a Matter of Taste" (which has a very funny scene involving wine-tasting), and "The Inspiration of Mr. Budd" (which is a clever story about a clever hairdresser). Stories I disliked include "The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba" (far too many improbable coincidences, plot holes, and inconsistencies), "The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey" (same problems, with an unpleasant, cruel atmosphere), and "The Image in the Mirror" (similar problems, joined to a lame Premise about twins).

Weighing the Good, Bad, and Ugly factors of these forty-four stories, in my judgment this collection deserves "B+" as its overall letter grade.

POSTSCRIPT: After this collection was published in 2002, an additional short mystery story by Sayers was discovered, titled "The Travelling Rug"; it was published as a separate booklet in 2005. Readers who are "completists" must now consider getting her forty-fifth short story. Evidence is gathering that "Complete Stories" is often a very relative term. Following the publication of several "complete" editions of the Father Brown mystery stories by Chesterton, one more story surfaced that he'd written on his deathbed, titled "The Mask of Midas"; it was first published in 1991 in Norway and has been republished in Chesterton's COLLECTED WORKS (vol. 24; 1993) and in THE COMPLETE ANNOTATED FATHER BROWN (vol. 2), ed. by Peterson and Accardo (Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2003). And in Agatha Christie's so-called "Secret Notebooks," ed. by John Curran, one more Miss Marple story and two more Hercule Poirot stories were found and recently published, casting tiny clouds over MISS MARPLE: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES (Putnam's, 1985) and HERCULE POIROT: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES (HarperCollins, 1999).

If you've by-passed Dorothy Sayers in favor of the more famous Agatha Christie, it's time to give Sayers a chance. Her characters are more interesting, and her writing more graceful. This collection of short stories is a great place to start: you get a sampling of Lord Peter Wimsy, her main man through the novels, as well as some other fun forays into puzzles, enigmas, and riddles. Great fun.

This collection of Dorothy Sayer's short stories is a fitting vehicle for her sharp wit, insight, and her penchant for a cracking good yarn. That the eccentric Lord Peter Wimsey is curiously believable, even though he finds himself in an extraordinary mix of circumstances, is a testament to Ms Sayer's literary skills.
So convenient to be able to take up one of Dorothy Sayer's stories from start to finish in one sitting. The problem is stopping at just one story. The narrative engages the reader immediately and maintains the reader's involvement to the very end. A great volume for anyone who wants to sample Ms Sayer's brilliant storytelling and well worth the purchase.

Written in the early 20th century, the stories include Lord Peter Wimsey and share the language and thinking of a person of peerage at that time. The plots are quite original, and surprises come without warning. Quite a pleasant read, the stories also inform us about the authority and privilege of position in a class-based society.