Dorothy L. Sayers 
The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers 
Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays

In this anthology, renowned murder mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers tackles faith, doubt, human nature, and the most dramatic story ever told.


For almost a century, a series of labyrinthine murder mysteries have kept fans turning pages hungrily as Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane discover whodunit, again and again.


Detective novel enthusiasts may not know that for almost as many years, Christian thinkers have appreciated the same Dorothy L. Sayers for her acumen as an essayist, playwright, apologist, and preeminent translator of Dante’s
Divine Comedy.


Now, for the first time, an anthology brings together the best of both worlds. The selections uncover the gospel themes woven throughout Sayers’s popular fiction as well as her religious plays, correspondence, talks, and essays. Clues dropped throughout her detective stories reveal an attention to matters of faith that underlies all her work.


Those who know Sayers from her nonfiction writings may wonder how she could also write popular genre fiction. Sayers, like her friend G. K. Chesterton, found murder mysteries a vehicle to explore the choices characters make between good and evil. Along with C. S. Lewis and the other Inklings, with whom she maintained a lively correspondence, Sayers used her popular fiction to probe deeper questions. She addressed not only matters of guilt and innocence, sin and redemption, but also the cost of war, the role of the conscience, and the place of women in society.


None of these themes proved any hindrance to spinning a captivating yarn. Her murder mysteries are more reminiscent of Jane Austen than Arthur Conan Doyle, with all the tense interpersonal exploration of the modern novel.

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A renowned British writer best known for her detective stories featuring investigator Lord Peter Wimsey, as well as for her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Dorothy L. Sayers was educated at Oxford. She became one of the founding members of the Detection Club – with G. K. Chesterton preceding her as president and Agatha Christie succeeding her. Her most enduring works of fiction include Gaudy Night, Busman’s Honeymoon, The Nine Tailors, and Murder Must Advertise. She also wrote several acclaimed plays – The Man Born to Be King, The Zeal of Thy House, and The Just Vengeance – and published essays in books such as Creed or Chaos? and The Mind of the Maker.