 First edition | |
| Author | Dorothy L. Sayers |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Lord Peter Wimsey |
| Genre | Mystery, Detective novel |
| Publisher | Gollancz [1] |
Publication date | 1937 [1] |
| Media type | |
| Preceded by | Gaudy Night |
Busman's Honeymoon is a 1937 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her eleventh and last featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, and her fourth and last to feature Harriet Vane.
Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry and go to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in Hertfordshire which he has bought her as a present. The honeymoon is intended as a break from his usual routine of solving crimes, and hers of writing about them, but it turns into a murder investigation when the seller of the house is found dead at the bottom of the cellar steps with severe head injuries.
After an engagement of some months following the events at the end of Gaudy Night , Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry. They plan to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in Harriet's native Hertfordshire which Wimsey has bought for her, and they abscond from the wedding reception, evading the assembled reporters.
Arriving late at night, they are surprised to find the house locked up and not prepared for them. They gain access and spend their wedding night there, but next morning the former owner, Noakes, is found dead in the cellar with head injuries. The quiet honeymoon is ruined as a murder investigation begins and the house fills with policemen, reporters, and brokers' men distraining Noakes' hideous furniture.
Noakes was an unpopular man, a miser and (it turns out) a blackmailer. He was assumed to be well off, but it transpires that he was bankrupt, owed large amounts of money, and was planning to flee his creditors with the cash he had received for Talboys. The house had been locked and bolted when the newly-weds arrived, and medical evidence seems to rule out an accident, so it seems he was attacked in the house and died later, having somehow locked up after his attacker. The suspects include Noakes' niece Aggie; Mrs Ruddle, his neighbour and cleaning lady; Frank Crutchley, a local garage mechanic who also tended Noakes' garden; and the local police constable, who was his blackmail victim.
Peter's and Harriet's relationship is resolved during the process of catching the murderer and bringing him to justice. In a final scene, in which almost the entire cast of characters is gathered in the front room of Talboys, the killer turns out to be Crutchley. He had planned to marry Noakes' somewhat elderly niece and get his hands on the money he had left her in his will. He had set a booby trap with a weighted plant pot on a chain, which was triggered by the victim opening the radio cabinet after locking up for the night. Wimsey's reaction to the case – his arrangement for the defendant to be represented by top defence counsel; his guilt at condemning a man to be hanged; the return of his shell-shock – dominates the final chapters of the book. It is mentioned that Wimsey had previously also suffered similar pangs of conscience when other murderers had been sent to the gallows. His deep remorse and guilt at having caused Crutchley to be executed leave doubt as to whether he would undertake further murder investigations.
Sayers completed no further Wimsey novels after Busman's Honeymoon, though she did begin work on a story titled Thrones, Dominations, which would be completed years after her death by Jill Paton Walsh.
The 1942 short story Talboys, the very last Wimsey fiction published by Sayers, is both a sequel to the present book, in having the same location and some of the same village characters, and an antithesis in being lighthearted and having no crime worse than the theft of some peaches from a neighbour's garden.
A "busman's holiday" is a holiday spent by a bus driver travelling on a bus: it is no break from the usual routine. By analogy, anyone who spends a holiday doing their normal job is taking a "busman's holiday".
In their review of Crime novels (revised edn 1989), the US writers Barzun and Taylor comment that the novel is "Not near the top of her form, but remarkable as a treatment of the newly wedded and bedded pair of eccentrics ... with Bunter in the offing and three local characters, chiefly comic. Peter's mother – Dowager Duchess of Denver – Peter's sister, John Donne, a case of vintage port, and the handling of "corroded sut" provide plenty of garnishing for an indifferent murder, even if we weren't also given an idea of Lord Peter's sexual tastes and powers under trying circumstances." [2]
Raymond Chandler, in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder," satirized a number of classic detective stories, and he chose this one among Sayers's novels to mock for the complicated murder method: "a murderer who needs that much help from Providence must be in the wrong business" [3]
Busman's Honeymoon first saw the light of day as a stage play by Sayers and Muriel St. Clare Byrne. Subtitled A Detective Comedy in Three Acts, it opened at London's Comedy Theatre, in December 1936, [4] with Dennis Arundell as Peter and Veronica Turleigh as Harriet Vane. [5] The play was a success, and ran for 413 performances. [5]
A 1940 film version, based as much on the play as on the novel, stars Robert Montgomery as Peter and Constance Cummings as Harriet. [6] The movie was released in the United States as Haunted Honeymoon. [7]
It was twice adapted for BBC television broadcast. The 1947 adaptation, 90 minutes in length, was directed by John Glyn-Jones and starred Harold Warrender as Lord Peter, Ruth Lodge as Harriet, and Ronald Adam as Bunter; Joan Hickson, later to be better known for playing Agatha Christie's amateur sleuth Miss Marple, played Miss Twitterton. [8] [9] [10] The 1957 adaptation, again 90 minutes in length, was directed by Brandon Acton-Bond, and starred Peter Gray as Lord Peter, Sarah Lawson as Harriet, and Charles Lloyd-Pack as Bunter. [11] [12] [13]
There have been three BBC radio adaptations. The first, in 1949, was adapted for radio by Peggy Wells, and starred Hugh Latimer as Lord Peter, Rita Vale as Harriet, and Stanley Groome as Bunter. [14] [15] The second, again adapted for radio by Wells, was broadcast in 1965, and featured Angus MacKay as Lord Peter, Dorothy Reynolds as Harriet, and David Monico as Bunter. The third adaptation, broadcast in 1983 on BBC Radio 4, was in six parts. This starred Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Sarah Badel as Harriet, Peter Jones as Bunter, Rosemary Leach as Miss Twitterton, Pearl Hackney as Mrs Ruddle, Peter Vaughan as Superintendent Kirk and John Westbrook as the Narrator. [16]
A stage production of Busman's Honeymoon took place at the Lyric theatre, Hammersmith from 12 July - 27 August 1988 and starred Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey and Emily Richard as Harriet (Lady Peter) Wimsey. The two actors are married to each other in real life. (Petherbridge starred as Lord Peter in A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery, a 1987 televised adaptation of all the Harriet Vane novels except Busman'sHoneymoon for which the BBC could not obtain the rights). [17]
Lifeline Theatre (Chicago, Illinois) presented an original adaptation of Busman's Honeymoon in the spring and summer of 2009. [18] Frances Limoncelli adapted the script from Dorothy Sayers' novel. The show was directed by Paul Holmquist. Busman's Honeymoon was preceded by adaptations of Whose Body? , Strong Poison , and Gaudy Night (all adapted by Frances Limoncelli and produced at Lifeline Theatre). [19]
Gaudy Night (1935) is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third including Harriet Vane.
Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is the fictional protagonist in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. A dilettante who solves mysteries for his own amusement, Wimsey is an archetype for the British gentleman detective. He is often assisted by his valet and former batman, Mervyn Bunter; by his good friend and later brother-in-law, police detective Charles Parker; and, in a few books, by Harriet Vane, who becomes his wife.
Strong Poison is a 1930 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fifth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and the first in which Harriet Vane appears.
Have His Carcase is a 1932 locked-room mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh novel featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and the second in which Harriet Vane appears. It is also included in the 1987 BBC TV series. The book marks a stage in the long drawn out courting of Harriet Vane by Wimsey. Though working closely with him on solving the book's mystery, she still refuses to marry him.
The Nine Tailors is a 1934 mystery novel by the British writer Dorothy L. Sayers, her ninth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. The story is set in the Lincolnshire Fens, and revolves around a group of bell-ringers at the local parish church. The book has been described as Sayers' finest literary achievement, although not all critics were convinced by the mode of death, nor by the amount of technical campanology detail included.
Thrones, Dominations is a Lord Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane murder mystery novel that Dorothy L. Sayers began writing but abandoned, and which remained at her death as fragments and notes. It was completed by Jill Paton Walsh and published in 1998. The title is a quotation from John Milton's Paradise Lost and refers to two categories of angel in the Christian angelic hierarchy.
Harriet Deborah Vane, later Lady Peter Wimsey, is a fictional character in the works of British writer Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) and the sequels by Jill Paton Walsh.
A Presumption of Death is a 2002 Lord Peter Wimsey–Harriet Vane mystery novel by Jill Paton Walsh, based loosely on The Wimsey Papers by Dorothy L. Sayers. The novel is Walsh's first original Lord Peter Wimsey novel, following Thrones, Dominations, which Sayers left as an unfinished manuscript, and was completed by Walsh. A Presumption of Death is written by Walsh, except for excerpts from The Wimsey Papers.
Mervyn Bunter is a fictional character in Dorothy L. Sayers's novels and short stories. He serves as Lord Peter Wimsey's valet, and served as Wimsey's batman during the First World War. Bunter was partially based on the fictional butler Jeeves, created by P. G. Wodehouse.
In the works of Dorothy L. Sayers, the fictional title of Duke of Denver is held by Gerald Wimsey, older brother of the books' protagonist, Lord Peter Wimsey. In novels written after Sayers' death by Jill Paton Walsh, Lord Peter also eventually holds the title. Sayers and several friends constructed an elaborate backstory for the duchy.
Lifeline Theatre was founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States in 1983 by five Northwestern University graduates: Meryl Friedman, Suzanne Plunkett, Kathee Sills, Sandy Snyder Pietz, and Steve Totland.
Sergeant/Inspector/Chief Inspector Charles Parker is a fictional police detective who appears in several Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, and later becomes Lord Peter's brother-in-law.
Busman's Honeymoon is a 1940 British detective film directed by Arthur B. Woods. An adaptation of the 1937 Lord Peter Wimsey novel Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon stars Robert Montgomery, Constance Cummings, Leslie Banks, Googie Withers, Robert Newton and Seymour Hicks as Mervyn Bunter.
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was an English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic.
The Attenbury Emeralds is the third Lord Peter Wimsey-Harriet Vane detective novel written by Jill Paton Walsh. Featuring characters created by Dorothy L. Sayers, it was written with the co-operation and approval of Sayers' estate. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton in September 2010.
The Wimsey Papers are a series of articles by Dorothy L. Sayers published between November 1939 and January 1940 in The Spectator. They had the form of letters exchanged by members of the Wimsey family and other characters familiar to readers of the Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels; but the articles were intended to convey Sayers's opinions and commentaries on various aspects of public life in the early months of the Second World War.
A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery is a series of television adaptations of three Lord Peter Wimsey novels—Strong Poison, Have his Carcase and Gaudy Night—by Dorothy L. Sayers.
Miss Katharine Alexandra Climpson is a minor character in the Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. She appears in two novels: Unnatural Death (1927) and Strong Poison (1930), and is mentioned in Gaudy Night (1935) and Busman's Honeymoon (1937).
Lord Peter Wimsey is a series of full cast BBC Radio drama adaptations of Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1973 and 1983, with a further adaptation of Gaudy Night mounted for BBC Audiobooks in 2005 to complete the full sequence of Sayers' novels, all starring Ian Carmichael in the title role.
Lord Peter Wimsey is a series of television serial adaptations of five Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L. Sayers, starring Ian Carmichael as Wimsey. They were broadcast on BBC1 between 1972 and 1975, beginning with Clouds of Witness in April 1972.