Gaudy Night is one of the most famous of Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey novels… It has been very well liked by women.. and encouraged a lot of girls to try for University….
It is set in a women’s college in Oxford in the 1930s. Sayers herself went to University there and loved her time at Oxford. She made many women friends, some of whom were also writers.
The novel follows Harriet Vane, whom Peter has rescued from hanging, in Strong Poison.. She had been accused of killing her ex lover, Philip Boyes.. and Wimsey proved her innocence.
Harriet has been busy with her writing over the 5 years since her trial, and has learned to live with the fact that she gets poison pen letters from people who think she was guilty…However Peter persists in asking her to marry him, but she keeps on refusing because she feels that she could not marry a man on a basis of gratitude..
She gets an invitation to a college “Gaudy”, a get together for former students, and decides to go, although she is a little afraid of facing her former tutors and fellow students. Her private life, including her affair with Boyes has been splashed all over the papers…
Harriet visits for the Gaudy, and finds that the dons and her old friends are pleased to see her…But she receives an anonymous letter while she is at the college, and feels that even in Oxford, there are people who disapprove of her conduct. She continues to see Peter Wimsey but cannot seem to either agree to marry him nor to break off the relationship.
Soon after her visit, she gets a communication from one of the dons, and realises that there are strange things going on there. It appears that some of the students and dons had received anonymous letters nastily phrased, and various pranks have been played, which all seem to add up the the presence of a “cross between a poltergeist and a poison pen writer.”
The dons are worried that if this gets out, it will affect the reputation of educated women. They beg Harriet to come and visit and see if she could find out what is causing this outburst of bizarre behaviour.
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