Striding Folly is a collection of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. First published in 1972, it contains the final three Lord Peter stories. The first two, "Striding Folly" and "The Haunted Policeman", were previously published in Detection Medley (1939), an anthology of detective stories. The third one, "Talboys", was unpublished. All three stories were also anthologized by James Sandoe in the collection Lord Peter: A Collection of All the Lord Peter Wimsey Stories.
The book also included a long preface by Janet Hitchman, including an extensive analysis of the character of Wimsey and his relation to Sayers' life, and including a previously unpublished letter of Sayers to Victor Gollancz.
Contents
Introduction: Lord Peter Wimsey and His Creator, by Janet Hitchman
Striding Folly–Lord Peter comes to the rescue of Mr. Merrilow, who is falsely accused of murdering his opponent in a chess match. A dream and some footsteps are the key to the mystery.
The Haunted Policeman–On the night Wimsey's first son is born, a policeman finds a body in house 13 on a street with only even numbers, and house and body disappear afterwards. Peter goes undercover to prevent the bobby being dismissed for drunkenness.
Talboys–The Wimseys and their three sons have the discourteous and meddlesome Miss Quirk wished upon them as a houseguest. Things become even more complicated when 6 year old Bredon Wimsey is accused of stealing a neighbor's prize peaches and Miss Quirk is adamant she has proof of his guilt.
Sources
Sayers, Dorothy L, and Janet Hitchman. Striding Folly, Including Three Final Lord Peter Wimsey Stories. Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent: New English Library ( ISBN978-0450549731), 1991. Print.
Sayers, Dorothy L. Lord Peter: A Collection of All the Lord Peter Wimsey Stories. New York: Harper & Row ( ISBN978-0060137878), 1972.
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.
Clouds of Witness is a 1926 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the second in her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. In the United States the novel was first published in 1927 under the title Clouds of Witnesses.
Unnatural Death is a 1927 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her third featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It was published under the title The Dawson Pedigree in the United States in 1928.
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.
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.
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.
Hangman's Holiday is a collection of short stories, mostly murder mysteries, by Dorothy L. Sayers. This collection, the ninth in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, was first published by Gollancz in 1933, and has been frequently reprinted.
Lord Peter is a collection of short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. First published in 1972 (ISBN 0-380-01694-X), it includes all the short stories about Lord Peter written by Dorothy L. Sayers, most of which were published elsewhere soon after they were written, and some related writings.
Harriet Deborah Vane, later Lady Peter Wimsey, is a fictional character in the works of British writer Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957).
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' novels and short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.
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.
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.
The gentleman detective, less commonly lady detective, is a type of fictional character. He has long been a staple of crime fiction, particularly in detective novels and short stories set in the United Kingdom in the Golden Age. The heroes of these adventures are typically both gentlemen by conduct and often also members of the British gentry. The literary heroes being in opposition to professional police force detectives from the working classes.
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.
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 broadcast on BBC One between 1972 and 1975, beginning with Clouds of Witness in April 1972.
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