SAYERS, DOROTHY LEIGH

Novelist and playwright; b. Oxford, England, June 13, 1893; d. London, Dec. 18, 1957. As the daughter of an Anglican parson, she was educated privately and at Somerville College, Oxford. In 1926 she married Capt. Atherton Fleming (d. 1950). Her early and solid reputation rested on a series of highly successful detective stories, the first of which was Whose Body ? (1923); the last, Busman's Honeymoon (1937). Although they are straight stories of mystery and detection, several of them indicate her strong interest in ecclesiastical matters (e.g., The Nine Tailors, 1934). With the outbreak of World War II, a marked religious development took place in her writing. In 1941 she published Begin Here, a study of the moral issues facing her country; a similar book in 1947 was entitled Creed or Chaos ? Her most effective religious work was the series of radio plays entitled The Man Born to Be King (1942). These vivid and realistic studies of the life of Christ manifested both detailed scholarship and deep religious insight. When published (1943), they became one of her most popular books. Other plays of deep Christian import are The Zeal of Thy House (1937) and The Just Vengeance (1946). An even deeper indication of her interest in religion and its relation to literature is clear in her work on Dante. She published a translation of the Inferno (1940) and a volume of essays, Introductory Papers on Dante (1954). The Mind of the Maker (1941) is a fascinating study of the process of creative writing seen as a rough analogue of the relationships within the Trinity. Her religious position was very close to the central Catholic tradition, although she never joined the Church of Rome. On practically every point of theology her orthodoxy was unimpeachable, and she made no secret of her personal commitment to Christianity. She was one of that small group of Anglicans (the best known, perhaps, was C. S. lewis) who have had a lasting influence on Christian thinking in the English-speaking world.

[t. corbishley]