The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 2, 1937-1943: From Novelist to Playwright by Dorothy L. Sayers
Trusting your bronchitis is better,
Yours sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 The Director of Religious Broadcasting, B.B.C. (1878–1952). In 1939 he became Dean of Lichfield Cathedral and was succeeded at the B.B.C. by Dr James Welch.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO NANCY PEARN
5 November 1938
Dear Bun,
I am passing on to you a number of things to turn down; I know you are already being firm, and I think we shall have to be quite firm even with the Bishop of Lichfield1, but I should like you to write him a personal note, explaining that I really am obliged to cut out these evenings of public speaking, because it exhausts time and energy. He is a nice man, and I started to write to him myself, and then decided, perhaps, it would be better for you to do it, for you can put up a better and more pathetic story about the burdens on the flesh.
Would you say to the Women’s Employment Federation that I refuse to be a patron of anything with which I am not intimately and personally connected; I am opposed to this whole business of patronage, which seems to me to be one of the most insincere ramps ever invented.
In reply to your letter, I think it would be an excellent thing for you and Dorothy Allen’s office to get together in the matter of the subsidiary rights of the Nativity play; so far as I can make out, the correspondence as it stands leaves us in an excellent position with full control, and since the B.B.C. say they do not want a contract, they will probably find themselves left with the short end of the legal bargain. We do not want to stir them into making a contract, lest they should suddenly discover this fact! I think the best thing is to keep as quiet as possible until after the broadcast, lest the minds of the producer, the director of religion, the actors and myself be cast into confusion by the uproar of controversy raging about us. On the other hand, I am all for snatching any advantage we can get out of the thing, and we shall, of course, have to face this question of publication, both in serial and in book form, but I really do think the best way is for my two Agents to settle their plan of campaign between them. The date suggested for the play is either December 23rd or Christmas day; Christmas eve is held to be impossible, because listeners are too much engaged in doing their domestic stuff. Val Gielgud wants Christmas day, and I agree with him, and he is fighting the governors for us.
As regards “Thrones, Dominations” – I cannot tell you anything yet; the fact is that I have taken a dislike to the story, and have great difficulty in doing anything about it.
Yours ever,
[D. L. S.]
1 Rt Rev. Edward Sydney Woods, (1877–1953) who was Bishop of Lichfield also when The Just Vengeance was performed there in June 1946.
24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex
TO IVY SHRIMPTON
6 November 1938
Dearest Ivy,
Here you are – I’m so sorry to have been all this long time. I’ve been dashing about all over the place, coping with the tour of Zeal, which was very nearly killed off dead by the crisis.1 We opened at Norwich in the crisis week, and with that and the next week lost practically every penny we had, before things began to pull themselves together. Fortunately I was able to get another backer in, and matters are a bit more cheerful now. But the whole thing was so depressing and unnerving, never knowing what was going to happen at any minute – whether all my actors would be called up, or only some of them, whether theatres were expected to close or stay open, and, worst of all, whether, when the crisis had blown over, we shouldn’t get a fresh series of crises to upset everything further. There were moments when one would positively have welcomed a war as being a definite decision. However, London seems a bit quieter in its mind at the moment – but for these weeks after the crisis itself, everybody was so played out and on edge that it seemed absolutely impossible to settle down to work.
John seems pretty cheerful at Malvern – everybody has to face the change from top-dog to bottom-dog some time. Congratulations on Rosemary’s success.2 Your youngsters always seem to do well.
Mac is much the same as usual. Aunt Maud is in Ireland with Margaret3 – of all dreary times of the year for an old lady to go trotting off to that damp hole. But apparently Margaret has taken it into her head that Ireland is the one spot in which she can finish a book. She has given up the Cornish farm, I believe, and what comes next I know not – nor does anybody, so far as I can make out. I saw her in London with Aunt Maud, looking rather thin and tired.
I don’t think I’ve written to you since seeing Kenneth Logan and his wife. I rather liked her – K. seemed to me a fairly dull sort of hearty. However, I asked them to a theatrical party, and gave them dinner and tickets for Zeal, and they expressed themselves as pleased with their entertainment.
Very glad to hear that Mrs. Spiller is better after her operation. She is a good soul.
I’m all right, but dreadfully tired with rushing about speaking at all kinds of places. I think I’m getting too old for this kind of thing – and what is the good of it? The passion people have for hearing speeches is quite beyond me!
Best love and heartfelt thanks,
Dorothy
1 Known as the Munich crisis. Following Hitler’s demands that Czechoslovakia should cede the Sudeten territories, Neville Chamberlain, then Prime Minister, flew three times to Germany in an attempt to prevent war. There was general expectation that war would be declared but on 30 September the Munich agreement was signed, which conceded almost all Hitler’s demands and left Czechoslovakia defenceless. The Sudeten territories were seized and in March 1939 Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. Military conscription in the U.K. was introduced in April and preparations for war began. Gas-masks were issued to the civilian population; volunteers filled sand-bags and dug trenches in Hyde Park and elsewhere.
2 Another child fostered by Ivy Shrimpton, who had won a scholarship to a grammar school.
3 Margaret Leigh (1894–1973), D. L. S.’ cousin and contemporary at Somerville.
24 Newland Street.
Witham
Essex
TO HER SON
6 November 1938
Dear John,
Many thanks for your two letters, which I was very glad to get, though you mightn’t think so from the time I have taken to answer. Curse this pen – I’ll try another.
Glad you seem to be settling down pretty well at Malvern. It’s quite all right about the Fives equipment. It won’t really blow me out of the water, though your guess about a theatre co. having gone pop came painfully near the truth! Still, we’re not in such straits that eight shillings and sixpence will either make or mar us. Actually, we did have an awful time during the crisis. We opened our tour1 at Norwich the very week that the whole affair pooped off, and of course business was killed stone dead. The second week we played Southport, and then, as though Hitler & co. weren’t trouble enough, the Lord saw fit to afflict us with a record gale and a flood on the Monday night that laid the street in which the theatre stands axle-deep in water for 200 yards. Our leading man2 took off his shoes and socks and paddled in! The audience (with some excuse) mostly stayed at home. Those two weeks ate up all our reserve funds, and we were afraid we should have to pack up altogether, since I certainly couldn’t afford to put in any more money. However, by great good fortune we succeeded in getting hold of a kindly backer, and have since played to good business at Newcastle and Brighton and rather less good at Southsea. So we hope for the best and are in any case carrying on till just before Christmas.
The beastly thing about the crisis was not knowing what one was expected to do in case anything did happen. I wish to goodness they would get on with the blooming National Register and get these matters clear. You can’t think how jolly it is to be more or less in charge of 40 people, of whom over 30 are men, and not know whether one is supposed to carry on or stop, whether one’s men will all be called up, or only
How is the Baruka?4 I never heard of it before, but I’ll take your word for it! I hope it is better, anyway.
With love and best wishes,
Mother
1 Of The Zeal of Thy House, in association with the Religious Drama Society.
2 Harcourt Williams.
3 Esmé Cecil Wingfield-Stratford, The Harvest of Victory: 1918–26, 1935.
4 This must be a mistake for verruca, a contagious wart-like growth, caught at swimming pools and other public places.
In November 1938, in order to raise money to help the tour of The Zeal of Thy House, D. L. S. lent her name to an advertisement for Horlicks Malted Milk. The editor of The Times commented humorously in the fourth leader on 21 November:
There can be few people nowadays who are not conversant with the perils of Night Starvation. The format and technique of advertisements in which these and other perils are graphically set forth are almost as firmly established, and much more widely apprehended, than the structure of a sonnet.
In the esteem of large sections of the populace these advertisements hold a high place; and their devotees have been electrified by the appearances of the latest of the series under the title “Tight-Rope: a true-life story told by Dorothy L. Sayers” … and in literary circles there has been much praise for the skill with which the gifted creatrix of Lord Peter has adapted herself to a new and special medium. A certain disappointment, it is true, has been caused by the fact that Lord Peter himself does not figure in her latest tour de force, which is concerned with a Mr and Mrs Bob Brown. Noblemen, so far as is known, are not immune from night starvation and often wake up tired.…
To this D. L. S. replied as follows:
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
22 November 1938
Dear Sir,
My attention has been drawn to your leader of yesterday, “Whither Wimsey?” You are curiously out-of-date in your information if you suppose that this is the first time that either Peter Wimsey or myself have been connected with the advertising profession. Peter was himself an advertising copy-writer for a short time with the firm of “Pym’s Publicity” – (is it not written in the book called “Murder Must Advertise”?), while I for nine years held a similar position with Messrs. S. H. Benson, Limited.
I heartily agree that the style of advertisement in question is not up to Peter’s standard or mine – but then, the advertisers refused to make use of the elegant copy I prepared for them and re-wrote it according to their own notion of what was fitting. This is what invariably happens to copywriters.
It may be of interest if I add that I undertook this advertising job when a small amount of capital was needed to finance the provincial tour of my play The Zeal of Thy House, and I had already invested in it as much as I could justifiably contribute from my revenue as a writer. Since no assistance was forthcoming from the Church for a play written and performed for her honour, I unblushingly soaked Mammon for what I could get in that quarter. Et laudavit Dominus villicum iniquitatis.1
Yours faithfully,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 And the Lord commended the unjust steward (Luke, chapter 16, verse 8).
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO JOHN DICKSON CARR
22 November 1938
Dear Mr. Carr,
Thank you so much for your letter. I did not see the paragraph in question, but it would be just as well to have it corrected, since a very odd thing happened about Gaudy Night. I invented both parts of the plot off my own bat: (a) There were the disturbances in College. No sooner had I started about these, than St. Hilda’s at Oxford promptly started on a series of poltergeist shocks played by some of the students, and I spent my time altering the book as I went to avoid reproducing any of the actual facts. (b) There was the story of the man who had falsified something in a thesis, and been deprived of his doctorate and degrees through the action of a woman scholar. Having invented this situation, I wrote to one of the Somerville dons to ask whether such a thing could possibly occur; she replied that it not only could occur but had occurred in Dublin, and gave me the names of the man and woman concerned, and the result was that I had to alter the plot again so as to avoid coming too close to the facts, which just shows how closely, as Oscar Wilde pointed out, “Nature copies art”. So that under the circumstances, it is just as well that the reporter should be made to eat his words, though I do not blame you in the least, since I know that reporters will always put down the precise opposite of what one has said if they can think of it quickly enough. Curse the whole race of them!…
Yours ever,
Dorothy L. Sayers]
24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex
TO R. A. SCOTT-JAMES1
22 November 1938
Dear Mr. Scott-James,
Please forgive my long delay in acknowledging your very kind letter about The Zeal of Thy House, which gave great pleasure to myself and to my Company. We are particularly pleased by what you say about the way in which we all work together in the spirit of the play. Having seen the show right through at every stage from its first beginnings at Canterbury, I know better than anyone how astonishingly that original spirit has been maintained through the various professional productions in London and on tour, and I attribute it chiefly to Harcourt Williams and Frank Napier, who have been with us all the time as actors and producers and have never allowed the thing to get out of shape. We have been trying very hard to get back to London for a series of Christmas matinées, but it is very difficult to get managers interested, though I still have one faint hope that something may be done about it.
It is sad that the National theatre2 will not be built in time; I do feel that there is need of an endowed theatre where this kind of play can get a showing. As you doubtless know, the great difficulty is the reluctance of commercial managers to take a courageous line with serious plays that need nursing and, of course, the reluctance of the public to come to anything which looks like doing them good or making them think, even though they may like it very much when they do get there. Anyhow, believe me that I am deeply gratified by the kind things you have said about the show.
Yours very truly,
Dorothy L. Sayers
1 R. A. Scott-James, O.B.E., M.C. (1878–1959), author, editor and literary critic.
2 As a schoolgirl D. L. S. discussed the need for a National Theatre with her friend Molly Edmondson. (See letter to her mother, 19 June 1910, T
On 26 November 1938, The Times published the following letter from H.E. Cainan:
WHITHER WIMSEY?
Sir Miss Dorothy L. Sayers mildly remarks that certain advertisers rewrote her elegant copy. Have you done it again? Or does her elegant copy sometimes need rewriting?
“Et laudavit Dominus villicum iniquitatis”! Not a bit of it! “Laudavit dominus villicum iniquitatis”, please. The words were spoken by the “Dominus”. And He was speaking of the steward’s employer. See the context.
Miss Sayers will surely repudiate such a bad example.…
To which D. L. S. replied:
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
28 November 1938
Dear Sir,
ET LAUDAVIT DOMINUS1
Alas! it was the Dominus Himself who identified Himself with the dominus. “And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends … . .” The word is “and” – though I have heard it misquoted as “but” by an agitated child of light, who sought thus to darken a counsel unexpected and possibly unwelcome.
Yours faithfully,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 The words in the Vulgate are as quoted by D. L. S.
24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex
TO HER SON
10 December 1938
Dear John –
“Rich be thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not displayed in fancy – neat, not gaudy.’1 All right, but use a suitable discretion in the purchase.
Glad to hear all your news, and know that things are going well and you find life interesting. I gather – was it from you or from Aunt Ivy, I haven’t the letter handy – that your English style finds more favour at Malvern than it did at Broadstairs. A little tendency to the ornate in early years is one which time corrects, and is not a bad symptom in itself. At any rate, I suffered from similar criticisms, but the result has not been so bad in the end.