(1893 – 1957)
Born in Oxford and winning a scholarship to study at Oxford, Dorothy graduated with a first-class honours in medieval French. Ooh la la! She worked as an advertising copywriter between 1922 and 1929 to supplement her writing career, with her first novel, Whose Body? published in 1923. Over the next 10-15 years she wrote ten more novels, introducing amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey before introducing a female lead character, Harriet Vane in Strong Poison (1930). 1935 was to see the last publication of the Lord Wimsey saga in Gaudy Night although he featured the following year in her play Busman’s Honeymoon. From there her work concentrated on the theatre, theology and translation culminating after the war in a translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy.
Commissioned by The Dorothy L Sayers Society, she is named as Witham’s most famous resident (she lived in the town from the 1930’s until her death), her statue stands on the high street opposite the library and a stone’s throw from her house at 22 Newland Street which has a blue plaque. Here, the cat steals the show at perfect petting height. Dorothy was apparently fond of cats and the one here is her own feline Blitz.
Shall I dwell on the fact that some cheeky monkey had drawn a cock and balls on her skirt at the time I visit? I thought not. Time to move on.
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