Harriet Vane

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Harriet Deborah Vane, later Lady Peter Wimsey, is a fictional character in the works of British writer Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957).

Vane, a mystery writer, initially meets Lord Peter Wimsey when she is tried for poisoning her lover (Strong Poison) - he falls in love with her and proposes marriage but she refuses to begin a relationship with him, traumatised as she is by her dead lover's treatment of her and her recent trial ordeal. In Have His Carcase she collaborates with Wimsey to solve a murder but still finds Wimsey to be overbearing and superficial. She eventually returns his love (Gaudy Night) and marries him (Busman's Honeymoon).

Contents

[edit] Character biography

Harriet Vane was the daughter of a country doctor. She took a First in English at the fictional Shrewsbury College, Oxford (the location of which is given as the Balliol College Sports Grounds, now partly occupied by a residential annexe, on Holywell Street). She had some success as a writer of detective stories, living and socialising with other artists in Bloomsbury. In time she fell for Philip Boyes, a more literary writer (but with fewer sales) who professed not to believe in marriage, and agreed to live with him without marrying. After a year of this arrangement, Boyes believed that she truly loved him and proposed marriage. Angered by his hypocrisy and aghast at being offered marriage as "a bad-conduct prize" Vane broke off the relationship.

Boyes died soon afterwards of arsenic poisoning — the method Vane had researched for her new book. Vane was arrested and tried for murdering Boyes. Wimsey came to her rescue by proving who really poisoned Boyes.

After Vane was acquitted, she remained quite notorious. Sales of her books sky-rocketed. Wimsey pursued her romantically, but Vane repeatedly declined marriage on the principle that gratitude was not a good basis for a marriage. Vane decided to take a walking tour to relax, during which she stumbled over a corpse on a beach, adding to her notoriety. The press was naturally interested; Wimsey hastened to the scene, after receiving a tip from a journalist friend, to help shield Vane from suspicion. The two investigated the death (when they were not romantically sparring).

A few years later, in 1935, Vane returned to Oxford for a reunion (or Gaudy) and was asked to investigate some strange occurrences at her old college. Vane protested that she was not a sleuth, and recommended that the college hire professional detectives. However, failing to reach either Miss Climpson, at the female detective agency set up by Wimsey, or Wimsey himself, she agrees to assist the college. Her cover was research into Sheridan Le Fanu, an Anglo-Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels of the 19th century. (In Thrones, Dominations, the Author's note states that Vane published a monograph on Sheridan Le Fanu in 1946.) After months of data gathering but no resolution in sight, Vane turned to Wimsey for help. By the end of the book the villain was unmasked and Vane had finally accepted Wimsey's proposal.

The press was delighted to have a woman once accused of murder engaged to a duke's son, and happily publicised the fact. Wimsey and Vane have a small wedding in Oxford with no notice to the press, and escape to their new country residence Talboys, a Tudor farmhouse in North Hertfordshire which Harriet had admired as a child and which Peter has given her as a wedding present. The body of the former owner is discovered in the cellar, leading them to investigate.

Thrones, Dominations, a novel abandoned by Sayers and finished by Jill Paton Walsh, is set in and around London, shortly after they return from their honeymoon.

The first of their children is born in the story "The Haunted Policeman".

By the time of the short story "Talboys" they have three sons: Bredon Delagardie Peter Wimsey (born in October 1936), Roger Wimsey (born 1938), and Paul Wimsey (born 1940). Chronologically between the two are "The Wimsey Papers", a series of epistolary articles written at the beginning of World War II which Sayers wrote for The Spectator. Jill Paton Walsh referenced "The Wimsey Papers" in writing A Presumption of Death, set at the beginning of the Second World War, in which Harriet takes a leading role. Sayers told friends orally that Harriet and Peter Wimsey were to have five children in all, though she did not disclose the names and sexes of the two youngest children.[1]

[edit] Influences

Sayers consciously modelled Vane on herself, although perhaps not as closely as her fans (and even friends) sometimes thought. Some view Vane as a stand-in for the author, although Vane has many more faults than most such characters. Both Sayers and Vane were among the first generation of women to receive an Oxford education, Sayers herself attending the 1920 graduation ceremony. Vane's relationship with Boyes has many similarities with Sayers' love affair (1921-1922) with the author John Cournos (1881-1966), a Russian-born American Jew.

Biographers note that Sayers' later relationships with Bill White and her marriage to the fellow writer Oswald Arthur "Mac" Fleming provide grist for Vane's struggle to balance love (and perhaps marriage to Wimsey) and her work. After Sayers' affairs with Cournos and White were revealed, the comparisons between Sayers and Vane became more emphatic. (Neither of these affairs were publicly known during Sayers' lifetime.)

McGregor and Lewis suggest that some of Vane's and Wimsey's observations about mystery in story versus real life — while in the context of a mystery story — reflect Sayers' sense of fun and ability to laugh with her characters.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Reynolds, Barbara. (1997) Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul, Macmillan, ISBN 0312153538, p. 340.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Books by Dorothy L. Sayers

[edit] Books by Jill Paton Walsh

[edit] Portrayal in film, TV or theatre

Harriet Vane was portrayed by Harriet Walter in the 1987 BBC television adaptations of Strong Poison, Have his Carcase and Gaudy Night.

[edit] References

  • Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul (1993) by Dr. Barbara Reynolds.
  • Dorothy L. Sayers: A Biography (1981) by James Brabazon.
  • Conundrums for the Long Week-End : England, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Lord Peter Wimsey (2000) by Robert Kuhn McGregor, Ethan Lewis ISBN 0-87338-665-5
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