I¹m not sure how I came to be obsessed with Dorothy L. Sayers and her
beloved Peter Wimsey. At any rate, I was determined to go on a pilgrimage
to England and walk in the places where she walked and to see the place
where her ashes lay. And to ostensibly find a signed copy of one of her
books every copy of which was beyond my economic horizons on my internet
searching. So I went to London I saw her heroine, Harriet Vane¹s
Bloomsbury. I went to Russell Square and stepped back into a time when
hotels smelled of potted meat and wet wool and it was always raining. I
saw where Harriet and Peter set up housekeeping after their marriage.
Finally, I wnet to St. Anne¹s Church in Soho DLS¹s final resting place
where she was warden for some 12 years before her deaeth in 1957. It took
three trips to the small tower where her ashes lay under the concrete before
I could get inside and stand in that place, but I finally got there What
is it that makes us feel connected when we stand where someone else is
buried?
And wandering around London on our second day there I stumbled into a
small book shop and, wonder of wonders, I asked if they had any Dorothy L.
Sayers¹ books and they said ³Are you her to look at her private library that
they had recently purchased at auction?¹ So I now have three of DLS¹s own
books and I have one signed and annotated in ink by her from her private
library. I have the books sitting in my living room in a small house, in a
small town in Indiana. But I have a part of something in my bookshelf I
take it out periodically and fondle it and feel like I can reawaken some
lost show in some other place and time.