Sayers, Dorothy L

comprising very many hundreds of letters received, discussing her literary work, religious affairs, societies and institutions with which she was involved, and other matters, together with large numbers of carbon copies of her typed replies or replies by her secretary on her behalf, correspondents including relatives (such as a series by her cousin Gerald Sayers), personal friends (including a series of long and thoughtful letters to Basil Smallpeice), fellow writers including Dennis Wheatley, Arthur Machen, John Gawsworth, and A.P. Herbert, other notable individuals including Violet Vanbrugh, Charles Oppenheimer, Lady Bonham-Carter, and Tom Driberg, as well as many hundreds of examples of “fan mail” from readers of her books, c.1910s-1957 but the vast majority from the late-1930s onwards, housed in two large boxes, considerable amount of wear, tear and staining

there are some thousands of pages in two boxes in this lot; there is a considerable amount of wear, tear and staining and some dust-soiling; however, there is no extensive damage or series of defects to the letters
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

A voluminous correspondence revealing the busy public life of Dorothy Sayers. There are letters from her early life – from a carbon copy of a letter by her seeking a job in advertising to various letters from 1920 onwards by her friend Muriel St Clare Byrne – but most letters date from the last twenty years of her life. Although she had stopped writing detective novels by this time, there are nevertheless hundreds of letters by readers expressing their admiration for the Peter Wimsey books, together with Sayers’s courteous replies. There are letters by old family and college friends, literary people, would-be authors, academics, journalists, lawyers, bank managers, publishers, booksellers (thick file, including Hachette, Zwemmer, Dobell, Kyrle Fletcher, and Martin Secker), actors and theatre people, members of various civic bodies, charities, arts clubs, bishops and clergymen, people applying for jobs with her as secretaries or domestic helps (thick file), RADA, the BBC, PEN, Book and Arts clubs, newspapers, and many other people, bodies and institutions. The subjects involved range from invitations to lecture, write, dine, broadcast, attend theatre productions or other occasions, support causes, read books and articles, and the like, to general discussions about life, work and her Christian beliefs. There is much correspondence concerning her efforts during the Second World War, discussing war parcels, fund-raising, help for refugees, Red Cross work, prisoner of war appeals, educational matters, book distribution, the American attitude to the War ("...they seem just recently to have suffered a change of heart..."), and much else. Her literary, social and church activities continued in the post-war years, when, besides her usual preoccupations, and dealing with fan mail, which now also encompassed positive reactions to her Dante translations, she engaged in a considerable amount of correspondence with Germans (a thick file), and wrote about the donation of food parcels, the Festival of Britain, and the Society for Theatre Research, engaged in a project with Vyvian Holland at Magdalen College, Oxford (entailing, inter alia, drawing up lists of Edmund Blunden's contributions to periodicals), and wrote lengthy and informative letters to her biographer Barbara Reynolds.