Unnatural Death Signed By Dorothy L Sayers

Published by Gollancz, London, UK, 1935. 1st edition thus. Original red cloth. Dustwrapper. Size: 13.8cm x 19.1cm. pp. 285 + genealogical table. A Lord Peter Wimsey crime novel. The first 2/6 edition of this work after the 1927 first edition. An important Golden Age crime novel for a number of reasons. Sayers would challenge the cultural associations of being coloured and criminality which were prevalent at the time as Hallelujah Dawson was found to be innocent. Additionally, this was the first crime novel of the Golden Age to broach the subject of homosexuality. Noah Stewart notes that the episode in which Mary Whittaker is kissed by Wimsey is ‘the closest that a writer in 1927 would be able to come to saying that a character was a lesbian and that kissing a man made her want to vomit’. Finally, given that Sayers’ ingenious method of murder was found to be highly impractical to implement, Sayers pledged herself ‘strictly in future to seeing I never write a book which I know to be careless’. (Source: Wikipedia). Signed by the author to the title page. Binding nice and tight but cloth a little faded, marked and frayed to the spine with minor marks to the boards and with slight spine lean. Minor mark to the top right edge of the front free endpaper. Overall a very good copy in good, nicked, chipped, dusty, faded and rubbed dustwrapper. Signed copies of Sayers’ Wimsey crime novels are exceptionally scarce in any form.