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Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul by Barbara Reynolds

pgchuis's review

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3.0

I read this in preparation for a course focussing mainly on the Peter Wimsey novels, so I more or less stopped reading after that section. Very interesting and very detailed, with lots of quotations from letters written to or by the author. The question of money and the lack thereof at times was surprising to me: I had somehow assumed that she moved in Wimseyesque circles (and her early childhood does sound pretty pampered) but by adulthood, she was definitely more like Harriet Vane and earning her living. Tragic that her parents never even knew she had a son. I note that the biography is written by a friend of hers and therefore inherently sympathetic; I was curious about Mac's first wife and children whom he "stopped supporting" and seem to have vanished entirely from his life. Dorothy seems not to have been able to find a husband deserving of her, or maybe she just chose badly. She did better for Harriet.
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