Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Dorothy L. Sayers
-
Standard Name: Sayers, Dorothy L.
Birth Name: Dorothy Leigh Sayers
Pseudonym: H. P. Rallentando
DLS
is best-known as a pre-second-world-war detective novelist, particularly as the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. But the financial success she enjoyed from these novels permitted her to turn to other genres and topics later in her career, including plays and radio dramas on religious themes, other Christian writings, and an important translation of Dante
.
Brabazon, James. Dorothy L. Sayers. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
She presented a copy of each of her books to her husband
, inscribed: R. H. Rash, with love from the author.
Shepherd, June. Doreen Wallace, 1897-1989: Writer and Social Campaigner. Edwin Mellen Press.
99
But he and most of her family never read her books, though...
Cultural formation
Doreen Wallace
By the time DW
became a student at Oxford she was a convinced unbeliever, given to stubborn argument with the Christian Dorothy L. Sayers
.
Leonardi, Susan J. Dangerous by Degrees: Women at Oxford and the Somerville College Novelists. Rutgers University Press.
57
She admired the historical fine man from Nazareth called...
Education
Doreen Wallace
At Somerville DW
became a close friend of Dorothy Sayers
(their religious and political disagreements later drove them apart) and in her circle met Vera Brittain
, Winifred Holtby
, and theSitwells
.
Leonardi, Susan J. Dangerous by Degrees: Women at Oxford and the Somerville College Novelists. Rutgers University Press.
57
Friends, Associates
Doreen Wallace
DW
's close friendships with Winifred Holtby
and Leon Geach
lasted until their untimely deaths. But that with Dorothy Sayers
ended in estrangement on religious and political grounds: the final straw was apparently DW
's...
Friends, Associates
Doreen Wallace
DW
later cherished epistolary friendships with other writers like Giles Dixey
and Roy Winstanley
. She formed a close bond with another, Janet Hitchman
, when, after reading her autobiography and sympathising with her struggles...
Material Conditions of Writing
Doreen Wallace
Eileen Wallace (later Doreen) began writing poetry as a child, generally to console herself for unhappiness.
Shepherd, June. Doreen Wallace, 1897-1989: Writer and Social Campaigner. Edwin Mellen Press.
MW
has specialized in adapting and abridging novels for radio. Between 1980 and 2004 she adapted a wide array of fiction by women writers, including works by Jane Austen
, Charlotte Brontë
, George Eliot
Literary responses
Patricia Wentworth
The dustjacket of this novel bears a list of encomiums on Miss Silver: [t]hat shrewd lady of lavender and Honiton lace (The Star), lovable, indefatigable and undeceivable (Books and Bookmen), [n]ow...
Textual Features
Dorothy Whipple
DW
also presents, with deliberate naivete, the ups and downs of her own career: her high points and failures of confidence. As her confidence grows, her narrative embraces funny anecdotes, moving moments, penetrating insights, and...
Literary responses
Charlotte Yonge
E. M. Delafield
writes that during the 1940s CY
retained wide popularity: that the London Library
's copies of her books were often checked out by readers, and that when Delafield wrote to the Times...