| Unnatural Death | |
 Early paperback edition cover |
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| Author | Dorothy L. Sayers |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Lord Peter Wimsey |
| Genre(s) | Mystery Novel |
| Publisher | Benn |
| Publication date | 1927 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Clouds of Witness |
| Followed by | The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club |
Unnatural Death is a 1927 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her third featuring 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 Benn is a Surname, and may refer to A W Benn (1843-1915 British rationalist/humanist writer Arthur Shirley Benn (1858-1937 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. Clouds of Witness is a 1926 novel by Dorothy L Sayers, the second in her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is a 1928 novel by Dorothy L Year 1927 ( MCMXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. 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 It has also been published in the United States as The Dawson Pedigree.
Contents |
Plot introduction
The plot concerns Lord Peter's investigation into the death, three years earlier, of an elderly lady in the last stages of cancer. Cancer (medical term Malignant Neoplasm) is a class of Diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled The lady's death has aroused no suspicion, despite her doctor's dismay at her end coming so quickly, but Wimsey suspects that it may, after all, have been 'unnatural'. The difficulty of discovering the method is compounded by the difficulty of discovering someone with the motive and opportunity to kill.
Plot summary
Overhearing a conversation in a restaurant between Wimsey and his friend Parker, a doctor tells the two of a death which has affected his career. A terminal cancer patient, old and wealthy, died unexpectedly early; the doctor provoked outrage when he queried the cause, and local opinion forced him eventually to move away. Wimsey is moved to investigate.
Wimsey discovers that the patient's great-niece - popular locally - had nursed her through her illness and was the intended heiress. The patient had a horror of contemplating death, however, and refused to listen to entreaties that she must make a will to be sure that her fortune would pass to her great-niece as she wished. A change in the law was imminent and meant that a great-niece would no longer inherit automatically and the estate would probably pass to the Crown. Killing her great-aunt before the legislation came in allowed the niece to secure the fortune intended for her.
When Wimsey begins investigating, using the recurring character Miss Climpson as his intelligence agent, the great-niece is provoked into covering her trail. She kills a former servant, fakes a kidnap-murder and tries to frame a distant relative with an interest in the Dawson estate, and almost kills Miss Climpson. Lord Peter exposes the great-niece's motive and methods, including the false identity she has established in London, and she is eventually arrested and imprisoned on remand, where she commits suicide. The doctor from whom Lord Peter originally heard the anecdote has moved on and is not grateful to be vindicated.
Characters in "Unnatural Death"
- Lord Peter Wimsey – protagonist, an aristocratic amateur detective
- Detective-Inspector Charles Parker – Wimsey's friend
- Mervyn Bunter – Wimsey's manservant
- Miss Alexandra Katherine Climpson – a gossipy, harmless-seeming spinster employed by Wimsey to make clandestine enquiries
- Miss Agatha Dawson (deceased) – a rich elderly cancer patient who died suddenly 3 years prior to the novel's action
- Miss Mary Whittaker – Miss Dawson's great-niece and heiress
- Dr Carr – Miss Dawson's doctor
- Miss Vera Findlater – a friend and admirer of Miss Whittaker
- Bertha and Evelyn Gotobed – former servants of Miss Dawson
- Rev Hallelujah Dawson – impoverished West Indian clergyman and distant cousin of Miss Dawson
- Mr Murbles – a solicitor and friend of Wimsey
- Mrs Forrest – the secondary identity of Mary Whittaker
Major themes
The central murder in this novel exemplifies its theme: a crime that has been identified as such is by definition a failure, whereas successful crimes are those which are never even suspected, and we can have no idea how many of the latter are committed. 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.
| “ | "If you murder someone in a brutal, messy way, or poison someone who has previously enjoyed rollicking health, or choose the very day after a will's been made in your favour to extinguish the testator, or go on killing everyone you meet. . . naturally you're found out in the end. But choose somebody old and ill, in circumstances where the benefit to yourself isn't too apparent, and use a sensible method that looks like natural death or accident, and don't repeat your efforts too often, and you're safe. I swear all the heart-diseases and gastric enteritis and influenzas that get certified are not nature's unaided work. Murder's so easy, Charles, so damned easy - even without special training. " | ” |
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— Lord Peter Wimsey, Unnatural Death, chapter VIII
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In Gaudy Night, Peter reflects on this case and confesses that he sometimes faces a dilemma about whether or not to investigate a case; had he not done so in this case, the elderly lady would have been the only victim, and the niece would have gotten away with a single murder, inherited, and gone on living a harmless existence. Gaudy Night is a 1935 Lord Peter Wimsey detective story by Dorothy L Instead, because he started snooping, the niece went on to kill two other people, almost killed Miss Climpson and himself, and finally took her own life.
Lesbian relationships
Lesbian relationships (through they are not explicitly called that, and might not be physically consummated) form a significant part of the book's background. A lesbian is a Woman who is romantically or sexually attracted only to other women The old woman whose murder originally drew Wimsey to the case is mentioned as having lived with another woman for some forty years, a relationship of strong love and affection, described to Wimsey by a former servant:
Miss Agatha was never one for flirting and foolishness. Often she used to say to me: 'Betty' she said 'I mean to be an old maid and so does Miss Clara, and we are going to live together and be ever so happy, without any stupid, tiresome gentlemen' (Chapter XII, "A Tale of Two Spinsters").
In a later chapter (XVI, "A Cast-Iron Alibi") the character Vera Findlater, a young and not too bright woman, is clearly shown to be passionately in love with the murderess and aspiring to form with her the same kind of life-long liaison - indignantly flaring up at the suggestion that she should just "wait for the right man". Tragically, her love is not returned, and she is just cynically used and finally murdered.
Racism
One of the fiendishly clever villain's ploys is to blame her crimes upon a non-existent gang composed of Blacks and Jews, depict her completely innocent distant Black cousin as its "Boss" and pretend to have been brutally kidnapped by it. Sayers shows how the ploy takes effect, immediately when police discover the carefully-planted false clues:
"God Bless my soul" said Sir Charles [a rather stupid Chief Constable] "An English girl in the hands of a nigger. How abominable!"
Later, the racist canard is shown to be eagerly picked by the popular press
The Yell came out with the gang story all over the front page this morning, and a patriotic leader about the danger of encouraging coloured aliens (Ch. XXI).
Finally, however, the anti-Black slant is exposed as a red herring, and the would-be Black scapegoat - a harmless, elderly West Indian clergyman - gets to keep the 10,000 Pounds (a very large sum at the time) which the murderess sent him in order to implicate him in her crimes.
Allusions/references to other works
Near the beginning of the story when first hearing of the titular death, Wimsey claims he feels just like Prince Florizel of Bohemia. Bohemia (Čechy; Bohemia Czechy is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands, currently the This is a reference to The New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson and not the prince in The Winter's Tale. New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1882, is a collection of short stories previously published in magazines between Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850–3 December 1894 was a Scottish novelist poet and travel writer, and a representative of Neo-romanticism in The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, first published in the First Folio in 1623
Also near the middle of the book, Wimsey states that Parker's repeated comments are ". . . like the Raven never flitting, which, as the poet observes, still is sitting, still is sitting, inviting one to heave the pallid bust of Pallas at him and have done with it. " This is a reference to "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. " The Raven " is a narrative poem by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845 Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic,
Allusions to actual history, geography and current science
The murder case Wimsey and Parker are discussing at the beginning of Chapter 1 is that of Dr Edmund William Pritchard, who was publicly hanged in Glasgow in 1865 for the murders of his wife and mother-in-law, who were poisoned with antimony. Year 1865 ( MDCCCLXV) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Antimony (IPA (Received Pronunciation, /ˈæntɪmoʊni/ (US is a Chemical element with the symbol Sb (stibium meaning "mark" and [1] There are also references to several notable multiple murderers in chapter VIII, all of whom initially murdered undetected but who were caught after they continued to kill. The cases mentioned are those of Dr William Palmer, George Joseph Smith, Herbert Rowse Armstrong and Burke and Hare. Dr William Palmer ( August 6, 1824 – June 14, 1856) was an English doctor who was convicted of Murder George Joseph Smith ( January 11, 1872 – August 13, 1915) was an English Serial killer more commonly known as the "Brides Herbert Rowse Armstrong ( 1869 - 31 May 1922) the " Hay poisoner " is commonly claimed to be the only Solicitor in Britain The Burke and Hare murders (also known as the West Port murders)
The change in the law such that, in the case of intestacy, more distant relatives could not inherit was the Administration of Estates Act 1925. The Administration of Estates Act 1925 is a law in the United Kingdom which changed the rule of Inheritance from Primogeniture to that of modern day norms
In the final paragraphs, Parker and Wimsey leave the prison after 6am on a June morning having viewed Mary Whittaker's body following her suicide, and Wimsey comments on the unnatural darkness outside. Parker replies: "It is the eclipse". This is a reference to the short solar eclipse of 24 June 1927, whose path of totality crossed Wales and Northern England. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth so that the Sun is wholly or partially obscured Events 972 - Battle of Cedynia, the first documented victory of Polish forces takes place Year 1927 ( MCMXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. It was largely obscured by cloud and rain but would have caused semi-darkness in London.
Literary significance and criticism
"The tale is perhaps a little forced in conception and remote in tone. That is the trouble with all the great masters -- they accustom us to such dazzling performances that when they give us what would seem wonderful coming from other hands, we sniff and act choosy. The mode of compassing death has been carped at, but no one could do anything but rejoice at Miss Climpson and her subterfuges. "[2]
"In Unnatural Death, she had invented a murder method that is appropriately dramatic and cunningly ingenious, the injection of an air-bubble with a hypodermic, but not only, in fact, would it require the use of an instrument so large as to be farcical, but Miss Sayers has her bubble put into an artery not a vein. No wonder afterwards she pledged herself 'strictly in future to seeing I never write a book which I know to be careless'. "[3]
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
In 1975, an adaptation starring Ian Carmichael was made for BBC Radio 4. Ian Carmichael OBE (born 18 June 1920) is an English Film, stage, Television and Radio Actor
References
- ^ BBC - h2g2 - Infamous Historical Poisoners
- ^ Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. A Catalogue of Crime. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8
- ^ Keating, H. R. F. The Bedside Companion to Crime. New York: Mysterious Press, 1989. ISBN 0-89292-416-2
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