Dorothy L. Sayers cover art

Dorothy L. Sayers

A Biography: Death, Dante and Lord Peter Wimsey

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Dorothy L. Sayers

By: Colin Duriez
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

Dorothy L Sayers was a woman of contrasts. A strong Christian, she had a baby by a man she did not love - out of wedlock. Possessing a fierce intellect, she translated Dante - and also created one of the most popular fictional detectives ever, in Lord Peter Wimsey. With no new biographies on Sayers having been published for some time, Colin Duriez reassesses her, her life, her writings, her studies and her faith. Drawing on previously unpublished material, particularly her collected letters, he brings to life a fascinating woman.

©2021 Colin Duriez (P)2021 Oasis Audio Art & Literature Authors Biography

Listeners also enjoyed...

 C.S. Lewis cover art
J.R.R. Tolkien cover art
The Oxford Inklings cover art
Hide-and-Seek with Angels cover art
Lord Peter Wimsey: BBC Radio Drama Collection Volume 1 cover art
Constellation of Genius cover art
The Jane Austen Remedy cover art
Simply Dirac cover art
The Power of Adrienne Rich cover art
Love Unknown cover art
Jane Austen: A Life from Beginning to End cover art
A Third Class Murder cover art
The Man Born To Be King cover art
Cecil Beaton cover art
The Man in the Queue cover art
Agatha Christie’s Poirot cover art
All stars
Most relevant
Miss Sayers was an extremely private person. So I imagine the author, despite access to her letters and a semi biographical unfinished novel, had great trouble finding anything new to add to the picture of a fascinating woman. More detail of her obsession with Dante would have been excellent to help explain her abandonment of detective fiction writing. Nor did I get any real sense of the religious zeal which was behind her later writings. The narration was uninspiring not helped by the author’s skipping around the time line. Great for a general overview but do not expect to learn much in depth of the life of Miss Sayers.

Not quite what I was looking for.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thorough in its telling and provides interesting insight into events but decidedly lacking in dramatic engagement. While one doesn’t seek disingenuous exaggeration or extrapolation in biography, the narrative feels dry and one is left wanting more of the human emotion of significant events. Perhaps the primary evidence isn’t there but that seems unlikely in the face of such a prolific author and letter-writer.

Informational but not engaging

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.