#harriet vane

[fromthedeskofcripslock]

This really ought to top every “Best Opening Lines,” list. The 21st century reading public is sleeping on Dorothy L Sayers.

(Have His Carcase 1932)

[taciturn-nerd]

More generously still, he had not only refrained from offers of help and advice which she might have resented; he had deliberately acknowledged that she had the right to run her own risks. "Do be careful of yourself"; "I hate to think of your being exposed to unpleasantness"; "If only I could be there to protect you"; any such phrase would express the normal male reaction. Not one man in ten thousand would say to the woman he loved, or to any woman: "Disagreeableness and danger will not turn you back, and God forbid they should." That was an admission of equality, and she had not expected it of him.

This is so beautiful, the respect that Peter shows Harriet in the face of the danger she may be in. I love that this book is also HER story. Peter is a side character in this book.

[thewomanwhowasthursday]

One of my favorite things Harriet says throughout all Sayer's novels is this, when asked by Lord Peter if she thought life was worth living:

"I've always felt absolutely certain it was good--if only one could get it straightened out. I've hated almost everything that ever happened to me, but I knew all the time it was just things that were wrong, not everything. Even when I felt most awful I never thought of killing myself or wanting to die--only of somehow getting out of the mess and starting again."

[no-where-new-hero]

deleting my dating apps because i want to meet someone the old fashioned way (getting tried for my ex-lover’s murder and gaining the attention of a diffident blond with beautiful hands and a monocle who’s certain i’m innocent)

[pricklysplendours]

I am DELIGHTED by this!

[elodieunderglass]

(Drops everything to sketch incoherently for 15 minutes) no but like. Peter and Harriet. They’re like this. You get me

[bomberqueen17]

gaudy night

ok many of you have read this book and reviewed it and i really was largely prepared for it but NOBODY WARNED ME ABOUT THE DOG COLLAR?????????

[superb-fairywren]

"Bless the man, if he hasn't taken my gown instead of his own! Oh, well, it doesn't matter. We're much of a height and mine's pretty wide on the shoulders, so it's exactly the same thing."

And then it struck her as strange that it should be the same thing.