And you, Mary, if you must run off to London, why do it in that unfinished manner, so that I was left without the car, and couldn't catch anything until the midnight train at Northallerton? It's so much better to do things neatly and properly, even stupid things.

Sayers once commented that Lord Peter was a mixture of Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster which is most evident in the first five novels. J. In addition to the ingenious thinking in working out this analogy the book contains striking examples drawn from her own experiences as a writer and elegant criticisms of writers when the balance between Idea Energy and Power is not in her view adequate.

She is also known for her plays literary criticism and essays. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. However Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to be her best work.