Lord Peter Wimsey

Lord Peter Wimsey is a fictional character in a number of detective novels by Dorothy L. Sayers.

He is the main character of a number of novels and short stories in which he solves murder mysteries. The novels take place in a setting contemporary to when they were written, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Lord Peter's fictional life starts in 1890. His full name is Peter Death Bredon Wimsey. His elder brother is the (fictional) Duke of Denver. Lord Peter served in World War I and got a bad case of shell shock, which causes him occasional problems throughout the books. He has a manservant, Bunter, who served with him in the war. Bunter is a man of at least as many talents as Lord Peter. Photography is one of them.

Among Lord Peter's hobbies, apart from criminology, are collecting incunabula, and classical music. He is quite good at playing Bach's works for keyboard instruments.

Lord Peter drives a Bentley. In Strong Poison Lord Peter meets Harriet Vane and falls in love with her. Harriet is a mystery writer accused of having killed her ex-lover.

Novels and the year of first publication:

Whose Body?, 1923
Clouds of Witness, 1926
Unnatural Death, 1927
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, 1928
Strong Poison, 1931
The Five Red Herrings, 1931
Have His Carcase, 1932
Murder Must Advertise, 1933
The Nine Tailors, 1934
Gaudy Night, 1935
Busman's Honeymoon, 1937
Thrones, Dominations, 1998 (Never finished by Sayers. Completed by Jill Paton Walsh.)

Short story collections including stories with Wimsey as main protagonist:

The Lord Peter Wimsey novels were made into a very successful television series by the BBC. Lord Peter Wimsey is played by Ian Carmichael during the seventies and later on by Edward Petherbridge, Harriet Vane is played by Harriet Walter. Both series are now available on videotape. There was a 1935 British movie of The Silent Passenger in which Lord Peter solved a mystery on the boat train crossing the English Channel, but the film does not seem to be available on videotape, at least in the U.S. The 1940 movie of The Haunted Honeymoon (American) or Busman's Honeymoon (British), starring Robert Montgomery and Constance Cummings as Lord and Lady Peter, is available on videotape in generic boxes on the secondary market.

As a footnote, Lord Peter Wimsey has also been included by the science fiction writer Philip Jose Farmer as a member of the Wold Newton family.