Sayers, Dorothy L

Sayers, Dorothy L(eigh)

(born June 13, 1893, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.—died Dec. 17, 1957, Witham, Essex) English scholar and writer. In 1915 Sayers became one of the first women to graduate from Oxford University. Her first major work was Whose Body? (1923), in which she created the detective Lord Peter Wimsey, a witty, dashing young gentleman-scholar who would be featured in such later short-story collections and novels as Strong Poison (1930), The Nine Tailors (1934), and Busman's Honeymoon (1937). After the 1930s she concentrated on theological dramas and books, radio plays, and scholarly translations, notably of Dante's Divine Comedy.