Lord Peter : a collection of all the Lord Peter Wimsey stories

This is uneven in quality, "Ali Baba being very weak, but over all good stories and a great way to relax before bed. I liked "Tallboys" and "In the Teeth of the Evidence" more than any of the others.
In the first 7 or so readings (okay, okay, maybe 5) I indiscriminately admired Sayers with a whole

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heart. Now that I'm a bit long in the tooth, snobbery, of which her books are full, yea, even beyond the ken of Miss Marple, has become less and less appealing to me. A Latin citation, or a French quote, untranslated can be frustrating enough for the average reader, but Homer, in the original Greek, is a bit over the top. I refer to all the Wimsey books here.

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I enjoyed these stories immensely. I read them over a period of about 4 months, and each story was quite wonderful. Lord Peter is a solid character, the mysteries are sound and endings that have a delightful twist. There a few stories that are weaker than others, some better. This should be a

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required reading for all fans of the mystery novel.

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(Book 7 in the 2005 book challenge)

Okay, this was a bit of a cheat because there was only one story I had not previously read. But I had to buy the whole book to get at that one story, so I'm counting it! It goes without saying that I love Sayers, and I lurve Lord Peter ... although I think the

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novels provide the best bang for the buck. Solving crimes seems like hard work, and a few pages of a short story make it seem a bit forced.

Grade: B-
Recommended: To people who have read all the books, and need to get their hands on more Wimsey. WHY WEREN'T YOU MORE PROFILIC?

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Brilliant, funny. I love Lord Peter and his detective stories. Dorothy L. Sayer is worthy reading

This collection of short stories is nice because it contains one about Peter and Harriet years after Busman's Honeymoon.

A compilation of all the short stories to feature Peter Wimsey, all of which are available in other collections, all of which – I think – we have, but this is a convenient way to read them all together. As is often the case with short stories, the quality is variable. Some are excellent, some

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average, one or two … not so good. The ones that stick in my mind from my childhood are the more gruesome of the bunch: the man who turned his girlfriend into an Art Deco sofa, the man who withdrew his wife’s thyroid medicine and turned her into a drooling imbecile for nine months of the year, the man who used his dentistry skills to fake his own death. Others, such as the, frankly preposterous, story where Wimsey fakes his own death in order to go undercover in a gang of jewel thieves for two years, I had completely forgotten, and will almost certainly soon forget again.

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Nothing like spending the weekend in the company of Lord Peter Wimsey. Unfortunately, now I must move on to other things.

I've just finished reading this for the third time. I find it delightful in variety, humor and esoteric information. I also believe that no one can write such grisly stories in such a palatable form. Some of these tales give little bits of insight into Lord Peter, but mostly they are fun puzzles.

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We get to follow along and watch him do his detective magic. Some of the tales are bizarre and mystical, which adds to the fun for me. I do prefer the novels, but these stories are like bits of licorice, you can't stop reading them.

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All the wonderful Peter Wimsey stories. A great treat.

I picked this up a year or so ago and *hated* the first story I read, which I thought priggishly class conscious. After reading the Wimsey novels, I liked the stories a great deal more, and would recommend them only after a reader has read at least one or two of Sayers's novels.

I haven't read all the stories, but those I have are engaging and baffling.

The reason for a three rather than a four star rating is that I generally find short stories less satisfactory than novels. However this volume contains all the short stories in which Lord Peter features, together with an essay on Sayers by Carol Heilbrun (literature professor and author of

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mysteries under the pen name Amanda Cross), and a brief parody of Wimsey by fellow Golden era writer E.C. Bentley, best known for _Trent's Last Case_. One of the problems with reading all the short stories over the course of a few days is that one notices how often Peter is drawn into a rather unlikely mystery by an utter stranger holding forth about his problem. Perhaps this a hazard of the older style of railway carriage. However, the tales are enjoyable even when reread.

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Convenient Wimsey Collection
Review of the Hodder & Stoughton paperback edition (2018)

This recent paperback edition collects the Lord Peter Wimsey stories from the previously issued short story collections Lord Peter Views the Body (Wimsey #4) (1928 - all 12 are Wimsey stories), Hangman's Holiday: A

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Collection of Short Mysteries (Wimsey #9) (1933 - only 4 Wimsey stories). In the Teeth of the Evidence (Wimsey #14) (1939 - only 2 Wimsey stories) and Striding Folly (Wimsey #15) (1939/1973 - only 3 Wimsey stories).

The stronger works are definitely the early ones here as the later domesticated stories often revert to Wimsey simply settling neighbourly squabbles. Still, this is a very convenient collection that negates the need to search for 4 separate earlier anthologies.

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My current distal discomfort being what it is, I thought a book of short stories would work for me, and I've been in the mood for some Whimsey.

Of this entire collection, I think the only one I'd read previously was The Necklace of Pearls. A few I didn't much care for - The Queen's Square pops

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immediately to mind, but that could be simply chalked up to my current attention span and the story being a fair-play mystery with maps are at odds. I liked the logic behind how Whimsey solved it, I just found the process tedious.

My favourites are far and away the easiest to identify:

The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Mileage's Will: I loved this story and I think it's a great example of superior writing, in that it was short but still contained all the suspense and entertainment many long stories struggle to achieve, and it was a nice departure from a 'murder' mystery.

The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head: Another 'no-murder' mystery; less suspense but still oodles of fun with old books, maps, and a treasure hunt. Peter learning what happens when you poke a dragon in the eye was the cherry on top of this delightfully fun tale.

The Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen Stomach: Probably my least fave of the 4 I'm listing, but there was a whimsy about it I enjoyed, if the premise itself wasn't totally disgusting.

Talboys: This one was just funny. Sweet too, but mostly just funny. The ending is sublime.

All in all a solid set of short stories, with very few disappointments.

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I didn't finish the book, so maybe the other stories are different. I was left with the feeling that Dorothy Sayers is too clever by half. The stories frequently use sometimes obscure scientific knowledge to create and solve a puzzle, which is far more important than the characters or their

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relationships. But, hey, these are short stories, without wasted words, and not novels. There's even a British-style crossword puzzle for the reader to do.

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This book contains some extras not included in "Lord Peter Views the Body". They are mostly not good, but the hilarious pastiche by E.C. Bentley makes up for all the rest.