The Nine Tailors
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Author	Dorothy L. Sayers
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Lord Peter Wimsey
Genre(s)	Mystery Novel
Publisher	Gollancz
Publication date	1934
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Murder Must Advertise
Followed by	Gaudy Night

The Nine Tailors is a 1934 mystery novel by British writer Dorothy L. Sayers, her ninth featuring sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Dorothy Leigh Sayers ( IPA: usually pronounced /ˈseɪɜrz/ although Sayers herself preferred /ˈsɛːz/ and encouraged the use of her middle initial to facilitate this The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, a Fictional character, is a bon vivant sleuth in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of Literature or Information &ndash the activity of making information available for public view A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a Book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with Cloth Paperback, softback, or softcover describe and refer to a Book by the nature of its binding. Murder Must Advertise is a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel by Dorothy L Gaudy Night is a 1935 Lord Peter Wimsey detective story by Dorothy L Year 1934 ( MCMXXXIV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Dorothy Leigh Sayers ( IPA: usually pronounced /ˈseɪɜrz/ although Sayers herself preferred /ˈsɛːz/ and encouraged the use of her middle initial to facilitate this Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, a Fictional character, is a bon vivant sleuth in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy

Plot introduction

For this novel, Sayers had to learn about change ringing. Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called "changes" In it, Lord Peter not only rings one of eight church bells in a record-setting series of sound patterns called "changes", but also uses his knowledge of bell-ringing to solve a 20-year-old mystery, located in the Fens, involving a stolen emerald necklace. The Fens, also known as the Fenland, is a geographic area in eastern England, in the United Kingdom. Emeralds are a variety of the Mineral Beryl (Be3Al2(SiO36 colored Green by trace amounts

Explanation of the novel's title

The title refers to the ringing of a church bell to signal a death in the parish. There is a ring of eight bells at the local church, each with its own name and history. The largest, the tenor bell, is Tailor Paul, the great bell on which are rung nine “tailor” or “teller” strokes at the death of a man in the parish, and six at the death of a woman. One stroke then follows for every year of the deceased’s life.

Plot summary

Stranded in a Fenland village on New Year’s Eve after a car accident, Wimsey helps ring a nine-hour peal of bells overnight after Will Thoday, one of the ringers, is stricken by influenza. New Year's Eve is on December 31, the final day of the Gregorian year and the day before New Year's Day. Lady Thorpe, wife of Sir Henry Thorpe, the local squire, dies next morning and Wimsey hears how the Thorpe family has been blighted for 20 years by the unsolved theft of jewels from a house-guest by the butler, Deacon, and an accomplice, Cranton. A butler is a senior servant in a large Household. In the Great houses of the past the household was sometimes divided into departments with the butler

At Easter, Sir Henry himself dies and his wife's grave is opened for his burial. Easter ( Greek: Πάσχα Pascha or Pasxa) is the most important religious feast in the Christian Liturgical year. A body is found hidden in the grave, mutilated beyond recognition. It is first thought to be the body of one Driver, a tramp labourer who arrived and then vanished just after the New Year. However, an odd cipher found in the bell-chamber suggests a link with France, and the dead man is found to be Cobbleigh, a British soldier who deserted and stayed in France after the war. In Cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an Algorithm for performing Encryption and Decryption &mdash a series of well-defined steps World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Cobbleigh appears to have discovered where the emeralds were hidden, and then to have plotted to recover them, probably with "Driver". "Driver" is discovered to be an alias of Cranton, the accomplice in the original theft.

Wimsey assumes the two men did recover the emeralds and Cranton then killed Cobbleigh for them, but cannot prove it. However, when he decodes the cipher (which requires knowledge of change-ringing) it leads him to the emeralds, still untouched in their hiding place in the church.

Bell ringing practice in Stoke Gabriel parish church, south Devon - similar to what Wimsey takes part in during the book

Much becomes clear when Cobbleigh turns out to have been Deacon, the thieving butler. Stoke Gabriel is a Village and Parish in Devon, England, situated on a creek of the River Dart. Imprisoned along with Cranton for the theft, he murdered a warder and escaped. A body, apparently his, was later found, but in fact Deacon had murdered a soldier and swapped identities with him. He married (bigamously, of course) in France and waited years to return for the emeralds, which he had hidden before his arrest. The term polygamy (a Greek word meaning "the practice of multiple marriage" is used in related ways in Social anthropology, Sociobiology, and Since he risked hanging if caught, he finally asked Cranton to help, sending him the cipher as a clue to the hiding place as a token of good faith. Cranton could not solve it but knew it related to the bells, so he came to Fenchurch as “Driver” on New Year’s Day. He went to the bell-chamber on the night of 4 January, but found Deacon‘s dead, bound body in the chamber and fled, dropping the cipher. There is still no clue as to how Deacon died.

Wimsey uncovers the truth. Deacon came to the church on 30 December to get the emeralds and encountered Will Thoday. Thoday had married Deacon's English wife Mary after the war, believing her a widow. Now he realised Deacon was still alive, making his and Mary's marriage bigamous and their daughters illegitimate. In Common law, legitimacy is the status of a Child that is born to parents who are legally married to one another or that is born shortly after the Desperate to prevent Deacon raking up the past and exposing his family to pain and scandal, Thoday tied him up in the bell-chamber, planning to bribe him to leave. But he became helpless with influenza next day (which is why Wimsey rang his bell in the New Year peal). Will’s sailor brother Jim eventually found Deacon dead in the bell-chamber on 2 January and assumed Will had murdered him. Appalled but loyal, he waited until Lady Thorpe’s funeral on 4 January, made the body unrecognisable and hid it in the new grave, then left for sea. When the body was discovered, Will assumed Jim had killed Deacon. Neither can explain how Deacon died.

The mystery is almost over; Deacon’s death alone remains inexplicable. It is only when Wimsey returns to Fenchurch the following Christmas that he understands. Floods inundate the countryside, and Wimsey climbs the tower as the bells are ringing the alarm. The appalling noise in the bell-chamber convinces him that Deacon, tied there for hours between New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day when Wimsey helped with the all-night peal, could not have survived. Deacon was killed by the ringers - or by the bells themselves.

Characters in "The Nine Tailors"

• Lord Peter Wimsey
• Mervyn Bunter, his manservant
• The Reverend Theodore Venables, rector of Fenchurch St Paul
• Sir Henry Thorpe, the local squire; his wife Lady Thorpe; their only daughter Hilary
• Superintendent Blundell, a policeman
• Jeff Deacon, once the Thorpes’ butler, convicted of a robbery in their house 20 years previously. Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, a Fictional character, is a bon vivant sleuth in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy Mervyn Bunter is a fictional character in Dorothy L Sayers ' novels and short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. A domestic worker, domestic, servingman, servingwoman, or servant is one who works and often also lives within the employer's household The word rector ("ruler" from the Latin regere and Rector meaning "Teacher" In Latin has a number of different meanings but all of them indicate an academic
• Nobby Cranton, a London jewel-thief and Deacon’s accomplice
• Will Thoday, a farmer and bellringer
• Mary Thoday, his wife, originally married to Deacon
• Jim Thoday, Will’s brother, a merchant seaman

Awards and nominations

• British Crime Writers Association - 1999 Rusty Dagger award for best crime novel of the 1930s. ^[1]

Literary significance and criticism

"For many reasons, no great favourite . . . despite Dorothy's swotting up of bell-ringing and the two good maps. The cause of death, however, is original, and the rescue scene in the church amid the flood shows the hand of the master. It should be added that this work is a favorite with many readers. Sinclair Lewis judged it the best of his four "indispensables" . Sinclair Lewis ( February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American Novelist, Short-story writer and . . ". ^[2]

"Dorothy L. Sayers incautiously entered the closed world of bell-ringing in The Nine Tailors on the strength of a sixpenny pamphlet picked up by chance -- and invented a method of killing which would not produce death, as well as breaking a fundamental rule of that esoteric art by allowing a relief ringer to take part in her famous nine-hour champion peal. "^[3]

Autobiographical elements

Hilary Thorpe, the resourceful and independent-minded 15-year old daughter of Sir Henry Thorpe - who bravely faces the loss of both parents during the book, and who provided vital help to Wimsey in solving the mystery - is mentioned as intending to become a writer and to study at Oxford, both being unconventional ambitions for a woman at the time of writing, and both based on the writer's own life.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The Nine Tailors was adapted for television in 1973 as part of a series starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter. Ian Carmichael OBE (born 18 June 1920) is an English Film, stage, Television and Radio Actor ^[4]

References

See also

• Change ringing
• Ring of bells