That path was not an easy one, and in her early twenties she lived as a single woman in poverty after WWI. As a founding member of the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers joined several classmates as writers who would critique one another’s work, which set her on a path of writing that would guide her life. Colleges for women, which included the same curriculum as comparable ones for men, were not yet granting degrees, but this did not stop Sayers from pursuing her studies in modern languages and medieval literature, even though she was not granted her master’s degree until 1920. After graduation from secondary school, Sayers attended Somerville College in Oxford, England (1912-1915), at a time when women’s post-secondary programs were in development. As a child she read widely in English and French, wrote and acted out plays and stories, and generally excelled in creative efforts and academics. As the precocious daughter of a clergyman, Dorothy began to study Latin at the age of six. Sayers is smart is akin to commenting on the capability of a neuroscientist. If you would ask me today, I would have much to say about why I read Sayers, but I will keep it simple: she’s smart she’s funny she’s relevant. Her work began to speak to me, here, now. But as I was exposed to more of her work, to the range of genres in which she wrote and excelled – poetry, plays, radio dramas, Christian apologetics, and even translations, I became enamored. Too many epigraphs by Shakespeare, Spencer, and other long-dead male writers complex characters who represent various classes of modern Britain after WWI and quote Latin, French, or speak with a broad Cockney accent plots and settings about spinsters, war veterans, churches, bell ringing, and advertising, to mention just a few. I tend to read detective novels as escapist fiction, and Sayers’ stories are often too sophisticated for that. I did not immediately love the work of Dorothy L. No management no box-office no dramatic critics and an audience of cheerful angels who don’t mind laughing. When we go to Heaven all I ask is that we shall be given some interesting job and allowed to get on with it.
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