Lord Peter Wimsey

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is a literary character from the English crime writer Dorothy Leigh Sayers . He is the protagonist in eleven novels and a number of short stories. As an amateur detective , he solves criminal cases, mostly murders . His inherited wealth gives him the necessary free time to pursue his detective interests, and his origins from a noble family give him access to the most interesting people and cases. The stories tell of Lord Peter's life as a contemporary person at the time of publication. His fictional date of birth is in 1890.

Fictional life

He is the second son of Mortimer Gerald Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, and of Honoria Lucasta, daughter of Francis Delagardie of Bellingham Manor , Hampshire . His siblings are Gerald Christian, 16th Duke of Denver, married to his cousin Helen, and Lady Mary, who later marries a Scotland Yard detective, Charles Parker, and has two children with him.

Peter Wimsey attended Eton College and obtained a Bachelor of History from Balliol College ( Oxford ) in 1912 . There he was an outstanding cricketer. He later collected incunabula . He is the author of Notes on the Collection of Incunabula and The Murderer's Vademecum , among others .

The Wimsey novels were written in the period between the two world wars , some also tell the life of Lord Peter until World War II , when he and his servant Bunter worked for the secret service. Already in the First World War he worked for the British secret service , last rank major . The war experiences of Wimsey, from which he suffered for many years, play a major role in the novels. His war comrade and loyal servant Mervyn Bunter, his friend Inspector Charles Parker, and later his wife Harriet Deborah Vane, a crime writer, accompany and support him in his detective work. Lord Peter and Harriet Vane have three sons.

Crime fiction trick

One of the fundamental problems of detective novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries was the social class of the investigator. Police officers typically came from the lower social classes, and neither in the 19th century nor in the early 20th century in the United States or Great Britain was it realistically conceivable that a member of this class would or could uninhibitedly investigate the upper class. In the United States, the social limit marked the material prosperity, in Great Britain belonging to the aristocratic class. At the same time, however, in particular crime novels with a plot met with a particular interest in reading among members of the upper classes. The American author Anna Katharine Green introduced a solution to this problem for the first time with her detective novel That Affair Next Door (published in 1897), which later detective authors took up several times. The investigating police inspector is assigned another figure who belongs to this layer. The figure of Lord Peter Wimsey is a modification of this trick. Lord Peter Wimsey is the main character in Dorothy Sayer's novels, who is complemented by Inspector Parker.

A Daimler model with which Sayers equipped its protagonists

Sayers himself justified the creation of this figure, however, with a form of escapism from one's own life situation.

"Lord Peter's high income ... I gave it to him very deliberately ... It ultimately cost me nothing, and at the time I was financially particularly limited. I enjoyed spending his fortune on him. If I was dissatisfied with my unfurnished one-room apartment, I got him a luxurious apartment on Piccadilly . If my cheap carpet got a hole, then I ordered a valuable one from Aubusson for it . When I didn't even have enough money to buy a bus ticket, I gave him a Daimler with leather seats and, when I was bored, let him drive around with it. I wholeheartedly recommend this inexpensive method of spending to all those who are dissatisfied with their income. It relieves the mind and does not harm anyone. "

With his origins, his income and his way of life, Peter Wimsey is one of the so-called “gentleman detectives”, which are typical of the so-called golden age of crime novels . The "gentleman detective" is an amateur detective who is not driven by financial interests, but rather his desire to solve a criminal case. Figures comparable to Wimsey are Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn and Agatha Christie's protagonists Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot . Even Margery Allingham's Albert Campion is one of the figures. According to Martha Hailey Dubose, the latter figure is significantly influenced by Wimsey.

Dorothy L. Sayers laid out Peter Wimsey as a complex and multi-layered personality: He is portrayed by Sayers as talkative and occasionally silly. In the 1929 novel Strong Poison , he describes himself as a buffoon . At the same time, however, he feels obliged to his own moral code, which often leaves him sad at the end of a case.

Television series

Five of the stories were filmed between 1972 and 1975 in Great Britain under the title Lord Peter Wimsey as a total of 21 part television series. Ian Carmichael played the title role in it. The series ran from 1977 on German television. In 1987 three more stories (Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night) were filmed, in which Edward Petherbridge took over the role of Lord Peter Wimsey.

Detective novels and collections of short stories with Peter Wimsey as the protagonist

  • Whose Body ?, T. Fisher Unwin, 1923 ( The dead man in the bathtub , also "One dead too little")
  • Clouds of Witness, T. Fisher Unwin, 1926 ( discreet witnesses , also "Lord Peter's worst case")
  • Unnatural Death, Ernest Benn, 1927. The Dawson Pedigree in the USA ( No natural death )
  • The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Ernest Benn, 1928 ( Trouble in the Bellona Club , also "It happened in the Bellona Club")
  • Strong Poison, Gollancz, 1929 (Strong Poison, also "Mysterious Poison")
  • Five Red Herrings, Gollancz, 1931, in the USA Suspicious Characters (five wrong tracks, also "five red herrings")
  • Have His Carcase, Gollancz, 1932 (At the hour in question, also "My Hobby: Murder")
  • Murder Must Advertise, Gollancz, 1933 ( Murder Must Advertise )
  • The Nine Tailors, Gollancz, 1934 ( The chime of the bell , also "The nine tailors"; background information: see alternating bells .)
  • Gaudy Night, Gollancz, 1935 ( riot in Oxford )
  • Busman's Honeymoon, Gollancz, 1937 (wedding comes before the fall, also "Lord Peter's adventurous wedding trip")
  • Thrones, Dominations, 1998 (In fine company. Lord Peter's last case; posthumously, completed by Jill Paton Walsh from an unfinished manuscript )

After completing Sayers' unfinished detective novel, Walsh published three more novels around Lord Peter and Harriet Vane until 2013.

radio play

  • Das Bild im Spiegel (The Image in the Mirror) - MDR 2003, with Peter Fricke
  • The haunted house in Merriman's End (The Haunt House in Merriman's End) - MDR 2003, with Peter Fricke
  • The Man Without a Face (The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face) - MDR 2003, with Peter Fricke
  • Der Pfirsichdieb (The Peach Thief) - MDR 2003, with Peter Fricke
  • Der Zank um den bones (The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention) - MDR 2003, with Peter Fricke
  • The mysterious kidnapping (The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey) - MDR 2003, with Peter Fricke
  • The wine tasting (A Hard-drinking Question of Good Taste) - MDR 2003, with Peter Fricke
  • In Ali Babas Höhle (The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba) - MDR 2003, with Peter Fricke

literature

  • Martha Hailey Dubose: Women of Mystery - The Lives and Works of Notable Women Crime Novelists . Thomas Dunne Books, New York 2011, ISBN 9780312276553 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martha Hailey Dubose: Women of Mystery , p. 9.
  2. ↑ Barbara Reynolds, Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul , p. 230. The original quote is: Lord Peter's large income ... I deliberately gave him ... After all it cost me nothing and at the time I was particularly hard up and it gave me pleasure to spend his fortune for him. When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room I took a luxurious flat for him in Piccadilly. When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered him an Aubusson carpet. When I had no money to pay my bus fare I presented him with a Daimler double-six, upholstered in a style of sober magnificence, and when I felt dull I let him drive it. I can heartily recommend this inexpensive way of furnishing to all who are discontented with their incomes. It relieves the mind and does no harm to anybody .
  3. ^ Martha Hailey Dubose: Women of Mystery , p. 215.
  4. ^ Martha Hailey Dubose: Women of Mystery , p. 290.
  5. ↑ Lord Peter Wimsey in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Web links