Detective-story writers are obliged by their disagreeable profession to invent startling and unpleasant incidents and people, and are (I presume) at liberty to imagine what might happen if such incidents and people were to intrude upon the life of an innocent and well-ordered community but in so doing they must not be supposed to suggest that any such disturbance ever has occurred or is ever likely to occur in any community in real life.Ĭertain apologies are, however, due from me: first, to the University of Oxford, for having presented it with a Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of my own manufacture and with a college of 150 women students, in excess of the limit ordained by statute.

In particular, Shrewsbury College, with its dons, students and scouts, is entirely imaginary nor are the distressing events described as taking place within its walls founded upon any events that have occurred anywhere. It is therefore the more necessary to affirm emphatically that none of the characters which I have placed upon this public stage has any counterpart in real life. It would be idle to deny that the City and University of Oxford ( in aetemum floreant) do actually exist, and contain a number of colleges and other buildings, some of which are mentioned by name in this book. Counsell Tables are Horti conclusi, (as it is said in the Canticles) Gardens that are walled in, and they are Fontes signati, Wells that are sealed up bottomless depths of unsearchable Counsels there. The University is a Paradise, Rivers of Knowledge are there, Arts and Sciences flow from thence. Sayers including rare images from the Marion E. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dorothy L. Gaudy Night is the 12th book in the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, but you may enjoy the series by reading the books in any order. Among the dons of Oxford lurks a killer, but it will take more than a superior education to match Lord Peter and the daring Harriet. As the threats become more frightening, she calls on Lord Peter for help. The first poison-pen letter calls her a “dirty murderess,” and those that follow are no kinder.

Putting aside her lingering shame from the trial, Harriet returns to Oxford for her college reunion with her head held high–only to find that her life is in danger once again. It took a timely intervention from the debonair Lord Peter Wimsey to save her from the gallows, and since then she has devoted her spare time to resisting his attempts to marry her.

She also won infamy when she was accused of committing a murder herself. Since she graduated from Oxford’s Shrewsbury College, Harriet Vane has found fame by writing novels about ingenious murders. Oxford is full of memories–and threats of murder–for Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey in this mystery that “stands out even among Miss Sayers’s novels” ( The Times Literary Supplement).

Gaudy night book