a Sayers x Rowling index

[bronze_ribbons]

Dorothy L. Sayers has a lot to answer for where my life is concerned, since my love for her mystery novels has led to the alias I use here for my partner, my longstanding love of Donne, a sojourn with a pair of football-loving lesbians in Edinburgh five years ago, a poem inspired by kolaches, and even my introduction to online journaling (via natalieann, who I met via a Sayers-centric eGroup). And several of you have been tremendously kind about my penchant for penning Wimsey - Dark Is Rising vignettes...

[ETA: This list is now maintained (sporadically) over at my fandom journal.]

At any rate, I seem to have amassed a folderful of bookmarks of HP fics and scenes containing allusions to or from Sayers (some faint, some marked). Voici:

[* = a personal favorite]

* ajhalluk - Lust Over Pendle series (superbly indexed by geoviki) (NL/DM)
ajhalluk - commentary on JKR, DLS, and HBP

busaikko - Even The Moon (SS/RL). Echoes two lines from Gaudy Night.

copperbadge - Wolves At the Door (gen; incomplete)
Cartographer's Craft - chapter 32 features a Ted Tonks whom the author characterizes in his summary as "Sayersian" (WIP; Lupin/Tonks and other pairings)

cordelia_v - Draco Vs. Lord Peter Wimsey (essay); see also ajhalluk's "Darth Wimsey" analysis

ellid - full series ("Motherless Child") archived at ellidfics - includes:
Truth (RL/PW)
New York Minute (SS/RL)
Ghost Story (SS/RL)
* Knowledge of Desire (SS/RL)

"Flourish" - Otherwise Known As Hermione Granger (SS/HG)

"Harriet Vane" - Dancing in Your Shadow (HG/DM, GinnyW/SF). Extended allusions to Strong Poison, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon, but not a happy fic.

"Hecate" - Words Beguile Him and A Game of Chess

hilarita - There is Pansies. That's For Thoughts


"Isis" - Salvation (SS/DM) - brief description of Snape's bookshelves in chapter 4

* jamoche Untitled (Aftermath) (NL/DM - part of the LoPverse)

lordpeter - character journal, milliways_bar RPG. Some of the older entries are Peter Wimsey/Remus Lupin.

me - Between Night and Dawn (SS/RL; NT/GinnyW)
Not Removed (SS/RL)
Vamping the History Department, Right and Left" (SS/RL)
Placet and related stories (SS/RL; Granger/Sinistra; others)

"Peacock Harpy" - Changes (LE/JP)

* Untitled: A Harry Potter RPG - the major pairing so far is BW/DM. Draco gave Ginny a copy of Gaudy Night on her eighteenth birthday.

I am aware of (but have not yet read):

"aashby" (a/k/a theatresm) - Chaos Is Come Again (HG/SS) and Brave New World
"Flourish" - Midnight Scrapbooks and What Little Things Remain (HG/SS)
"DrT" - Training and Confrontations (H/L/Hr tale, with N/G, R/T; 53 chapters)
"GryffindorTower" - Blaise Zabini and the Magical Cat and several other series
"Angua9" - Harry Potter and the Fifth Year From Hell (R/H)
Natasha Simonova - Here Then At Home and "The Perilous Point" (SS/OFC)

Other:

It was noted in a couple of fanforums earlier this year that the bookshelf-qua-links page on Rowling's official website includes two volumes with "Dorothy L. Sayers" printed on their spines. The print is blurred, but if I had to guess, I'd say they were copies of In the Teeth of the Evidence.

In part 2 of an interview on HBP publication day, Rowling mentions Sayers in an exchange with Melissa Anelli:

MA: How much fun did you have with the romance in this book?

JKR: Oh, loads. Doesn't it show?

MA: Yes.

JKR: There's a theory - this applies to detective novels, and then Harry, which is not really a detective novel, but it feels like one sometimes – that you should not have romantic intrigue in a detective book. Dorothy L. Sayers, who is queen of the genre said — and then broke her own rule, but said — that there is no place for romance in a detective story except that it can be useful to camouflage other people's motives. That's true; it is a very useful trick. I've used that on Percy and I've used that to a degree on Tonks in this book, as a red herring. But having said that, I disagree inasmuch as mine are very character-driven books, and it's so important, therefore, that we see these characters fall in love, which is a necessary part of life.

---

I suspect I've misplaced at least one mention and I know I've missed others -- feel free to note and promote them in the comments; I'll be updating this list when time and inclination coincide.

I also have some vague notions brewing (so to speak) on how much being mad for Sayers correlates to "mad keen on Slytherin-Gryffindor OTPs" and how many of these happen to be written and rec'd by fen over the age of thirty-five. I'm not sure, though, to what degree my perceptions are skewed, given that I am myself in my mid-thirties and fondest of Snape/Lupin romances with a degree of (ahem) bite to them. At any rate, I honestly don't see myself generating an essay out of this before mid-2006 (if ever) -- should you feel inspired (or provoked) to do so, please consider yourself strongly and enthusiastically encouraged. *gleam* [ETA: More general musings about Snupin/age can be found here at catrinella's.]

Last updated 10/8/05. Newer versions will be posted at bronze_ribbons.

Comments

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Added to my memories for when I need some good fic to read. :)

manos74 has a habit of picking up Sayers books for me when he sees them; the latest find is Dorothy L. Sayers: Solving the Mystery of Wickedness.

[musigneus.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Should I check in as a thirty-something with a fondness for Sayers and Snape/Lupin romances? ;)

Sounds as if it could be an interesting essay; I hope you keep it in mind!

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

You were one of the folks that got me thinking about this. :-) That, and noticing how many of the top Snupin authors (at least, the ones I reread) -- ellid, cruisedirector, scribbulus_ink, arionrhod, xochiquetzl, leogryffin -- were born during the 1960s...

[catrinella.livejournal.com]

In 1981, my freshman year of high school, I wrote a story for my English class that was essentially Wodehouse/Sayers crossover fic. With a dash of Saki, in that they all died horribly with witty bon mots upon their lips.

If that's the Snupin community, I am so changing ships.