Editing Gaudy Night

{{Short description|1935 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name          = Gaudy Night
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image         = gaudy night.JPG
| isbn          = 978-0062196538
| caption       = First edition
| author        = [[Dorothy L. Sayers]]
| cover_artist  =
| country       = United Kingdom
| language      = English
| series        = [[Lord Peter Wimsey]]
| genre         = [[Mystery fiction|Mystery novel]]
| publisher     = [[Victor Gollancz Ltd|Gollancz]]<ref name="BLcat">{{Cite web |url=http://primocat.bl.uk/F?func=direct&local_base=ITEMV&doc_number=003263673&con_lng=eng |title=British Library Item details |website=primocat.bl.uk |access-date=20 April 2018 |archive-date=22 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522000718/http://primocat.bl.uk/F?func=direct&local_base=ITEMV&doc_number=003263673&con_lng=eng |url-status=dead }}</ref>
| release_date  = 1935<ref name="BLcat"/>
| media_type    = Print
| pages         = 483<ref name="BLcat"/>
| preceded_by   = [[The Nine Tailors]]
| followed_by   = [[Busman's Honeymoon]]
}}

'''''Gaudy Night''''' (1935) is a [[mystery novel]] by [[Dorothy L. Sayers]], the tenth featuring [[Lord Peter Wimsey]], and the third including [[Harriet Vane]].

The [[university don|dons]] of Harriet Vane's ''[[alma mater]]'', the all-female [[List of fictional Oxford colleges|Shrewsbury College, Oxford]] (based on Sayers' own [[Somerville College, Oxford|Somerville College]]), have invited her back to attend the annual [[Gaudy]] celebrations. However, the mood turns sour when someone begins a series of malicious acts including [[poison pen letter|poison-pen messages]], obscene [[graffiti]], and wanton vandalism. Despite the dons' reluctance to share the secret with an outsider, Harriet convinces them to let her bring in Lord Peter Wimsey to assist the investigation – but his involvement is not without complications, both personal and professional.

==Plot==
Harriet Vane returns with trepidation to her ''[[alma mater]]'', [[List of fictional Oxford colleges|Shrewsbury College, Oxford]] to attend the [[Gaudy]] dinner. Expecting hostility because of her notoriety (she had stood trial for murder in an earlier novel, ''[[Strong Poison]]''), she is surprised to be welcomed warmly by most of the dons, and rediscovers her old love of academic life. Harriet's short stay is, however, marred by her discovery of a sheet of paper with an offensive drawing, and a poison pen message referring to her as a "dirty murderess".

Some time later the [[dean (education)|Dean]] of Shrewsbury writes to ask for her help. There has been an outbreak of vandalism and anonymous letters, and fearing for the college's reputation if this becomes public knowledge, the Dean wants someone to investigate confidentially. Harriet, herself a victim of poison-pen letters since her trial, reluctantly agrees, and returns to spend some months in residence, ostensibly to do research on [[Sheridan Le Fanu]] and to assist a don with her book. The timing of the first poison pen message during the gaudy, and the use of a Latin quotation from the ''[[Aeneid]]'' during one disturbance, focuses suspicion on the Senior Common Room dons, causing escalating tensions.

As Harriet wrestles with the case, trying to narrow down the list of suspects who might be responsible for [[poison pen letter|poison-pen messages]], obscene [[graffiti]], wanton vandalism including the destruction of a set of [[proofreading|scholarly proofs]], and the crafting of vile [[effigy|effigies]], she is forced to examine her ambivalent feelings about Wimsey, love and marriage, and her attraction to academia as an intellectual and emotional refuge. Wimsey eventually arrives in Oxford to help, and she gains a new perspective from those who know him, including his nephew, an undergraduate at the university.

The attacks build to a crisis. There is an attempt to drive a vulnerable student to suicide and a physical assault on Harriet that almost kills her. The perpetrator is finally unmasked as Annie Wilson, one of the college [[bedder|scout]]s, revealed to be the widow of a disgraced [[University of York]] academic. Her husband's academic fraud had been exposed by an examiner, destroying his career and driving him to suicide; his suicide note used the Latin quote eventually used by Wilson. The examiner later moved to Shrewsbury College, and the widow's campaign has been her revenge against the examiner in particular and more generally against intellectual women who move outside what she sees as their proper [[Separate spheres|domestic sphere]].

At the end of the book, Wimsey admits his own faults in his attempts at courtship, and Harriet comes to terms with her own feelings, finally accepting Wimsey's proposal of marriage.

==Principal characters==

[[File:Somerville College, Oxford - Library2.JPG|thumb|A modern view of [[Somerville College, Oxford]],  Sayers' ''[[alma mater]]'' and the inspiration for her fictional Shrewsbury College]]

*[[Harriet Vane]] – protagonist, a mystery writer
*[[Lord Peter Wimsey]] – protagonist, an aristocratic amateur detective
*Letitia Martin – Dean of Shrewsbury College
*Helen de Vine – new Research Fellow at Shrewsbury College
*Miss Lydgate – Harriet's former tutor<ref>This character is based on [[Mildred Pope]], Sayers' tutor at Somerville College. {{Cite book|last=Kennedy| first = Elspeth| editor =Jane Chance|chapter=Mildred K. Pope (1872–1956): Anglo-Norman Scholar| title = Women medievalists and the academy | year = 2005 | publisher=U of Wisconsin Press |location=Madison|isbn=978-0-299-20750-2|pages=147–56|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5QrnjT2NT5MC}}</ref>
*Dr Baring – [[Warden (college)|Warden]] of Shrewsbury College
*Miss Hillyard – history [[University don|don]] at Shrewsbury College
*Phoebe Tucker – Harriet's old college friend
*Viscount Saint-George – Lord Peter's nephew, an undergraduate at [[Christ Church, Oxford]]
*Reggie Pomfret – undergraduate at [[The Queen's College, Oxford|Queen's College]]
*Miss Burrows – College librarian
*Annie Wilson – [[bedder|scout]] at Shrewsbury College
*Padgett – Head Porter at Shrewsbury College
*[[Mervyn Bunter|Bunter]] – Lord Peter's manservant

==Title==

A "[[gaudy]]", at the  [[University of Oxford]], is a [[Colleges of the University of Oxford|college]] feast, typically a reunion for its [[alumni]]. The term "gaudy night" appears in Shakespeare's ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'': "Let's have one other gaudy night: call to me / All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more / Let's mock the midnight bell".<ref name="A&C">{{Cite book |title=Antony and Cleopatra |last=Shakespeare |first=William |at=Act III, scene 13, line 187}}</ref>

==Reception==
Writing in 1936, [[George Orwell]] disagreed with the opinion of an [[The Observer|''Observer'']] critic who felt that ''Gaudy Night'' had put Miss Sayers "definitely among the great writers". Orwell concluded, to the contrary, that "her slickness in writing has blinded many readers to the fact that her stories, considered as detective stories, are very bad ones. They lack the minimum of probability that even a detective story ought to have, and the crime is always committed in a way that is incredibly tortuous and quite uninteresting".<ref name="Orwell">{{Cite book |title=The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: Volume 1, An Age like This, 1920 to 1940 |last=Orwell |first=George |publisher=Secker & Warburg |year=1968 |editor-last=Orwell |editor-first=Sonia |pages=161–162 |editor-last2=Angus |editor-first2=Ian}} The review was originally published in ''[[The New English Weekly]]'', 23 January 1936.</ref>

In a letter to [[Christopher Tolkien|his son Christopher]] from May 1944, [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] wrote: "I could not stand Gaudy Night. I followed P. Wimsey from his attractive beginnings so far, by which time I conceived a loathing for him (and his creatrix) not surpassed by any other character in literature known to me, unless by his Harriet. The honeymoon one (Busman's H[oneymoon].?) was worse. I was sick."<ref name="Tolkien">{{Cite book|title=[[The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien|The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien Revised and Expanded]]|last=Tolkien|first=J. R. R.|publisher=[[HarperCollins]]|editor-last=Carpenter|editor-first=Humphrey|editor-last2=Tolkien|editor-first2=Christopher|year=2023|pages=118–119}}</ref><!-- DO NOT change the punctuation in the quote. It is as written. -->

[[Jacques Barzun]] stated that "''Gaudy Night'' is a remarkable achievement. Harriet Vane and Saint-George, the undergraduate nephew of Lord Peter, help give variety, and the college setting justifies good intellectual debate. The motive is magnificently orated on by the culprit in a scene that is a striking set-piece. And though the Shrewsbury dons are sometimes hard to distinguish one from another, the College architecture is very good".<ref name="COFC">[[Jacques Barzun|Barzun, Jacques]] and Taylor, Wendell Hertig.  ''A Catalogue of Crime''. New York: Harper & Row.  1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989.  {{ISBN|0-06-015796-8}}</ref>

==Themes==

Although no murder occurs in ''Gaudy Night'', it includes a great deal of suspense and psychological thrills. The narrative is interwoven with a love story and an examination of women's struggles to enlarge their roles and achieve some independence within the social climate of 1930s England, and the novel has been described as "the first feminist mystery novel".<ref>{{cite book |author=Randi Sørsdal |title=From Mystery to Manners: A Study of Five Detective Novels by Dorothy L. Sayers (Masters thesis) |publisher=University of Bergen |year=2006 |pages=45}}[https://web.archive.org/web/20070611050150/https://bora.uib.no/bitstream/1956/2136/1/Masteroppgave_Randi%20Soersdal.pdf]</ref>

The novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including the right relation between love and independence, and between principles and personal loyalties. [[Susan Haack]] has an essay on ''Gaudy Night'' as a [[philosophical novel]].<ref>Haack, Susan (May 2001). [http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/sayers-haack-2180 "After my own heart: Dorothy Sayers' feminism. Reflections on ''Gaudy Night'', the philosophical novel, and old-school feminism"], ''[[The New Criterion]]'', Vol. 19. Reprinted in Cassandra L. Pinnick, [[Noretta Koertge]], and [[Robert F. Almeder]] (eds) (2003). ''Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology: An Examination of Gender in Science''. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 244–251. {{ISBN|0-8135-3227-2}}.</ref>

The issue of women's right to academic education is central to the book's plot. Sayers had herself been one of the first women to obtain an Oxford University degree, having been awarded first-class honours in the mediaeval literature examinations of 1915.<ref name="NYT">{{Cite news |title= Dorothy Sayers, Author, Dies at 64 |date=19 December 1957 |work=[[The New York Times]] |page=29}}</ref> She attended [[Somerville College, Oxford|Somerville College]], the basis for the fictional Shrewsbury College of the plot.<ref>[http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/3606/Dorothy-L-Sayers.html Somerville Stories – Dorothy L Sayers] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005002943/http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/3606/Dorothy-L-Sayers.html |date=5 October 2013 }}, Somerville College, [[University of Oxford]], UK.</ref>

==Adaptations==
The book was adapted as a [[A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery|three-part series]] for BBC television in 1987, starring [[Edward Petherbridge]] as Wimsey and [[Harriet Walter]] as Harriet.<ref name="Genome">{{Cite web |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/03140b9ea26645aa978effd9877735d3 |title=Gaudy Night |date=13 May 1987 |website=BBC Genome |access-date=1 January 2019}}</ref>

In 2005 a [[Lord Peter Wimsey (radio series)|dramatisation of the novel]] was released on CD by the [[BBC Radio Collection]], with [[Joanna David]] as Harriet and [[Ian Carmichael]] as Wimsey. In 2010 the dramatisation was broadcast on BBC Radio 7.<ref name="BBCRadio">{{Cite book |title=Gaudy Night (BBC Radio Collection) |date=7 March 2005 |id={{ASIN|0563494093|country=uk}} }}</ref>

==See also==
* {{slink|University of Oxford|Women's education}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{FadedPage|id=20140201|name=Gaudy Night}}
* {{citation |url=http://www.planetpeschel.com/wp/the-wimsey-annotations/gaudy-night/ |title=Gaudy Night: Annotations and explanations |first=Bill |last=Peschel |work=Annotating Wimsey |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120528080255/http://www.planetpeschel.com/wp/the-wimsey-annotations/gaudy-night/ |archive-date=28 May 2012 }}
* {{citation |url=http://faithanncolburn.wordpress.com/tag/dorothy-l-sayers/ |title=Gaudy Night — More Than a Mystery |first=Faith Ann |last=Colburn |date=2013 |access-date=12 March 2018 |archive-date=23 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140523013301/http://faithanncolburn.wordpress.com/tag/dorothy-l-sayers/ |url-status=dead }}

{{Lord Peter Wimsey}}
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[[Category:1935 British novels]]
[[Category:Campus novels]]
[[Category:Novels by Dorothy L. Sayers]]
[[Category:Novels set in the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:British philosophical novels]]
[[Category:Victor Gollancz Ltd books]]
[[Category:British mystery novels]]
[[Category:Novels set in the 1930s]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into television shows]]
[[Category:Lord Peter Wimsey novels]]