Gaudy Night

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTIONGaudy Night is the tenth Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Dorothy L. Sayers (and the third featuring Harriet Vane). It was originally published in 1935. When the dons of Harriet Vane’s alma mater, the all-female Shrewsbury College, Oxford, invite her back to attend the annual Gaudy celebrations, she attends with some trepidation due to the events narrated in Strong Poison (the fifth Lord Peter Wimsey novel), but she finds herself welcomed. The mood turns sour, though, when someone sends her a poison pen letter calling her a “dirty murderer.”

Later, the Dean of Shrewsbury asks her for help—the series of malicious acts shows no sign of stopping. Who is responsible for the poison-pen messages, obscene graffiti, and wanton vandalism? If word gets out, the school’s reputation will be tarnished.

Of course, Harriet asks her old friend Lord Peter Wimsey to help.

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Shrewsbury—based on Sayers’ own Somerville College—provides ample challenges for Lord Peter and Harriet Vane, as they attempt to find the culprit. For readers unfamiliar with Oxford traditions a “gaudy” is a college feast, typically part of a reunion for alumni. The term “gaudy night” is taken from Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra:

Let’s have one other gaudy night: call to me

All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more

Let’s mock the midnight bell.

Sayers had herself been one of the first women to obtain an Oxford university degree, having been awarded first-class honours in the mediaeval literature examinations of 1915. Indeed, the issue of women’s right to academic education is central to the book’s plot. The lecturers of Shrewsbury College are veterans of the prolonged struggle for academic degrees for women, which Oxford granted only reluctantly. The Fellows of the college are surprised and a bit dismayed at the attitude of their students, who take for granted this right for which such a hard struggle had to be fought.

Although Gaudy Night is more of a suspense novel than a traditional murder mystery (indeed, no murder occurs), it is a worthy addition to the Lord Peter Wimsey series. In addition to the suspense plot, it includes a romantic subplot between Lord Peter and Harriet Vane, while also serving as an examination of women’s roles in England during the 1930s. It was called “the first feminist mystery novel” by Randi Sørsdal in From Mystery to Manners: A Study of Five Detective Novels by Dorothy L. Sayers (2006).

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