Whose Body?

infobox Book |
name = Whose Body?
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Recent paperback edition cover
author = Dorothy L. Sayers
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series = Lord Peter Wimsey
genre = Mystery
publisher = Boni Liveright
release_date = 1923
media_type = Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
pages =
isbn = ISBN 0-380-39966-0 (recent paperback edition)
preceded_by =
followed_by = Clouds of Witness

"Whose Body?" is a 1923 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers (ISBN 0-380-39966-0), which introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.

Plot introduction

Lord Peter is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect, and investigates. A noted financier has also gone missing under strange circumstances, and as the case progresses it becomes clear that the two events are linked in some way.

Plot summary

Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, telephones to say that Thipps, the architect her vicar has hired to do some work on the church, has just found a dead body in the bath in the flat where he lives: a body wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez. Ignoring the clumsy efforts of the official investigator, Inspector Sugg, who suspects Thipps and his servant, Wimsey starts his own enquiry. Meanwhile Sir Reuben Levy, a famous financier, has apparently disappeared into thin air in his own bedroom, and there has been an odd little flurry of trading in some mining shares, long believed defunct. Inspector Parker, Wimsey's friend, is investigating this.

The corpse in the bath is not Levy, but as matters unfold Wimsey becomes convinced that the two are linked. The trail leads to the prestigious teaching hospital next door to the architect's flat, and to the eminent surgeon and neurologist Sir Julian Freke who is based there. Wimsey finally unravels the gruesome truth: Freke murdered Sir Reuben and staged his 'disappearance' from home, having borne a grudge for years over Lady Levy, who chose to marry Sir Reuben rather than him. He also engineered the trading in mining shares, to lure Sir Reuben to his death. He dismembered Sir Reuben and gave him to his students to dissect, substituting his body for that of a pauper donated to the hospital for that purpose, who bore a superficial resemblance to Sir Reuben. The pauper's body, washed, shaved and manicured, was then carried over the roofs and dumped in Thipps' bath as a joke. Freke's belief that conscience and guilt are inconvenient physiological aberrations, which may be cut out and discarded, are an explanation for his monstrous conduct. He attempts to murder both Parker and Wimsey, and finally tries suicide when his actions are discovered, but is arrested in time.

The book establishes many of Wimsey's character traits - for example, his interest in rare books, the nervous problems associated with his wartime shell-shock, and his ambiguous feelings about catching criminals for a hobby - and also introduces many characters who recur in later novels, such as Parker, Bunter, Sugg, and the Dowager Duchess.

This book is now in the public domain in the United States, but may still be copyrighted elsewhere.

Literary significance and criticism

"A stunning first novel that disclosed the advent of a new star in the firmament, and one of the first magnitude. The episode of the bum in the bathtub, the character (and the name) of Sir Julian Freke, the detection, and the possibilities in Peter Wimsey are so many signs of genius about to erupt. Peter alone suffers from fatuousness overdone, a period fault that Sayers soon blotted out."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]

The original finding of the naked body and the deductions to be made from it were fairly 'daring' for the time. As originally intended, Wimsey would have known at once that the body could not be that of Sir Reuben Levy because it was not circumcised. (Of course, not all circumcised males are Jews, but all un-circumcised males are 'not Jews', so the deduction would have been legitimate!) However, this was felt to be too frank by Sayers' publisher, and in the published version the deduction was made merely on the basis that the dead man appeared to have been doing manual labour rather than living the comfortable life of a wealthy financier.

External links

* [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sayers/body/whose-body.html Full text of the initial US printing of this novel]

References