Dorothy L. Sayers
6 books by Dorothy L. Sayers to read free, each with its best passages and lines, and the best quotes from all of them below.
Where to start
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Whose Body?
An aristocratic detective unravels the mystery of a body deposited in a bathtub in 1920s England.
59,320 words, about 4 hours
Then
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Clouds of Witness
An aristocrat with a passion for detective work has to clear the Duke, his brother, from a charge of murder.
83,430 words, about 6 hours
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Strong Poison
A gentleman detective works to exonerate a woman accused of poisoning her ex-lover.
78,019 words, about 5 hours
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The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
The discovery of the quiet death of an elderly man at an exclusive club leads to unexpected complications.
72,242 words, about 5 hours
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Unnatural Death
An amateur detective’s investigation of the suspiciously-early death of an elderly lady triggers a series of deadly events.
80,924 words, about 6 hours
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Lord Peter Views the Body
A collection of short stories in which an aristocratic amateur detective solves a variety of crimes.
93,304 words, about 7 hours
Dorothy L. Sayers quotes
“Oh, damn!” said Lord Peter Wimsey at Piccadilly Circus. “Hi, driver!”
“Contrast,” philosophized Lord Peter sleepily, “is life. Corsica—Paris—then London … Good morning, Bunter.”
There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood.
“It’s the self-defense of the first-class mind against the superior person,” said Wimsey.
But doctors, poor devils! are everlastingly walking a kind of social tightrope.
The Egotists’ Club is one of the most genial places in London.
His long, amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola.
Some people hold that breakfast is the best meal of the day. Others, less robust, hold that it is the worst, and that, of all breakfasts in the week, Sunday morning breakfast is incomparably the worst.
The judge was an old man; so old, he seemed to have outlived time and change and death.
“Take him away!” said Fentiman, “take him away. He’s been dead two days! So are you! So am I! We’re all dead and we never noticed it!”
I have a sensation of internal gloating which assures me that there is something to be investigated.
“Boys like you don’t flatter an old woman for nothing.”
“A dead man, dear, with nothing on but a pair of pince-nez. Mrs. Throgmorton positively blushed when she was telling me. I’m afraid people do get a little narrow-minded in country vicarages.”
Wimsey would be one of the finest detectives in England if he wasn’t lazy.
“Victim,” said the Hon. Freddy, “victim. Me for the corpse in the library.”
They looked like a dreadful little Guy Fawkes procession, with that humped and unreverend mannequin bobbing and swaying between them.
Isn’t civilisation wonderful?
“You should have lived in the great days,” said the voice appreciatively. “Your talents are wasted on the young fry.”
On the dead face the handsome pair of gold pince-nez mocked death with grotesque elegance; the fine gold chain curved over the naked breast.
“She always says, my lord, that facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away. She is a very courageous woman, my lord.”