12 Reasons the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Should be on Your 2017 Reading List

Cover to The Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Image via Open Road Media, digital publishers of this edition.

6. Let’s Get Literary

Dorothy L. Sayers was actually one of the first women to graduate from Oxford University, and she received a degree in medieval literature. She actually completed full translations of Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio. What we’re saying here is that Sayers knew her way around some literature, and she isn’t above referring to other works.

Here’s a personal favorite from The Five Red Herrings. The novel features a policeman by the surname of Duncan, and Lord Peter takes a minute to riff on this:

‘Go to, go to,’ said Wimsey, ‘you have heard what you should not. Put on your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again. Campbell’s dead; ‘a cannot come out on’s grave.’

‘I wish he could.’

‘Wake Duncan with thy knocking? I would thou couldst.’

‘Oh, stop drivelling, Wimsey. This really is damnable.’

‘O horror, horror, horror,’ pursued Wimsey, staggering realistically into a corner, ‘tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name it. Where got’st thou that goose-look?’

[…]

‘…That constable fellow, Duncan — ‘

‘I told you Duncan came into it somewhere.’

‘Shut up’ (Chapter 12).

She’s referring to several lines from Macbeth; “O horror, horror, horror” is from Act II, Scene 3.

Honestly, since Duncan is comparatively a minor character, I feel safe in assuming Sayers named him thus just for the setup to this exchange.

Though this is just one example, the novels are full of references to poetry and more. If solving the mystery doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps you could have more fun picking out the literary nods instead.