Sayers wrote novels, plays, poetry, criticism, and 'popular' theology. Her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novels are delightful. The Nine Tailors is a country house murder mystery that, improbably, involves a great deal of technical information on the art of change ringing, an intricate form of ringing a set of tuned church bells which has a long history in England. Gaudy Night, another Lord Peter novel, has been described both as the first feminist mystery novel, and a sustained attack on National Socialist social doctrine. Murder Must Advertise, also featuring Lord Peter is a biting examination of what she called the 'cardboard' world of the advertising industry. She had an insider's knowledge of the industry, since she had worked in an ad agency. In fact, she may have coined the famous phrase, 'It pays to advertise' in the novel, and she was responsible for a famous jingle to accompany the Guinness Toucan in its first appearance as the stout's mascot.
Her translation of the Divine Comedy of Dante, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise was critically acclaimed and is still highly readable. She deliberately preserved Dante's terza rima scheme, an interlocking, three line rhyme scheme. Umberto Eco said that of all English translations, hers ' does the best in at least partially preserving the hendecasyllables and the rhyme'.
Her The Lost Tools of Learning is a seminal work in the modern classical education movement, which argues for reviving the medieval trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) as tools to enable the analysis and mastery of every other subject.
Her works of popular theology include Creed or Chaos and The Mind of the Maker (this edition of 'Mind' contains an introduction by Madeleine L'Engle, the well known American authoress of young adult fiction).
'Creed or Chaos' is a basic restatement of Christian doctrine based on the Three Historical Creeds of Anglicanism, the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian. We Catholics, of course, accept all three of these, but we add the Tridentine Creed as well. It has been compared to Lewis' Mere Christianity but 'more densely written'.
In 'The Mind of the Maker' she uses her experience in the literary creativity process as a poetess, authoress, and translator to illuminate the Christian doctrine on the nature of the Doctrine of the Trinity.
I highly recommend her as a theologian (remembering that she was not a Catholic), novelist, critic and translator. I've not read her poetry, but if her masterful translation of Dante is any indication of her ability, I think it's safe to say that her poetry is worth a read.
She said, amongst many memorable quotes,
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