An Annotated Wimsey

Introduction

The LordPeter mailing list has undertaken the project of reading and discussing all the Lord Peter Wimsey stories in something like chronological order. As I started rereading Whose Body?, I was reminded of how many times I've wished there were an Annotated Wimsey. But alas, Sayers had not yet found her Martin Gardner. So I thought, anyway. Lacking the time or the knowledge to make up for the lack, I'm still using the occasion to compile as many notes as possible on the maze of allusions in the stories, particularly the variously obscure matters of literature, music, and 20s history.

In fact, there is an Annotated Wimsey: Stephan Clarke's The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion (ISBN 0892968508, Mysterious Press, 1985). Of course, it's out of print, and copies very rarely turn up. If you've got one, cherish it. The good news is that work on a new revised edition is now far advanced; we may see it in print (and on CD-ROM) by the end of 2002.

When the new Companion comes out, it is going to be the definitive work. In the meantime, these pages offer a different view, less exacting and perhaps more whimsical. Not being a printed reference work, they are in order of page number within the books. which can be convenient for the reader. (The costs of reprinting preclude putting out the Companion either in the format of The Annotated Alice or hyperlinked to the text.)

Other Wimseyan Sources

A central collection of Wimsey links is in Jennifer Talley's Wimsey page.

Notes on the Notes

What needs annotation, and what doesn't? You can explain everything, giving the impression that your readers are pig-ignorant. Or you can leave things out, implying "Nobody is so ignorant as not to know that!" Or, perhaps worst of all, you can write notes that apologize for themselves, which is somehow even more patronizing.

Dropping that last practice is a no-brainer. The best practice, which I'll attempt to emulate, is probably that of Harold Ross, who founded The New Yorker: Explain everything. As I recall, he said that the only two people you could name without any explanation were Houdini and Sherlock Holmes. So, if you find a note somewhere that makes you gnash your teeth at its explanation of the obvious, please consider that I may have done the same. Though more probably I gnashed my teeth at the obviousness of some other note.

For all that, here is a list of things that are taken for granted in my text.

Alice
The reader is assumed to have heard of the major works of Lewis Carroll, which are the second most widely reprinted books in English, and the most widely reprinted of original English works.
Bible
Biblical citations will be given without explanation, as in Luke 16:1-9. In some cases I may link to an on-line copy of the text, as with one of Sayers's favorite parables. Naturally, references will normally be to the Authorized (King James) Version, which Wimsey would have used.
Lord Peter Wimsey
In the least indefensible of these practices, the Peter Wimsey stories will simply be cited by name, or sometimes by standard abbreviation (see below).
LPWC
The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion, cited above.
OED
The Oxford English Dictionary, originally and properly known as the New English Dictionary, but no one would recognize that.
Sherlock Holmes
The Holmes stories will simply be referenced by name, as if no one in the world could fail to recognize The Hound of the Baskervilles or The Lion's Mane.

The notes as published here are based on my postings to the LordPeter mail list, with many changes and additions from the people on the list. I have tried to give credit where credit is due; please let me know where I've slipped up.

Page numbers in the text are mainly from my 1970-ish Avon paperbacks. I've given the page number for the start of each chapter, so that you can relate the numbers I use to those in your favorite edition. This should make finding text much easier till the arrival of that Definitive Edition whose very page numbers I am unworthy to compute. How long, how long, O Lord?

References to the various stories will commonly use the abbreviations that the mailing list uses; these are defined when they first appear.

Finally, is it necessary to say that I welcome any comments and corrections and additions?

The Books Annotated

Contributing to the Notes

These notes contain many questions that the collected learning of the Lord Peter list has not been able to answer. More than likely, there are also things in the books that ought to have been annotated but have not been. It's even possible that there are errors in the notes.

If you have any corrections or additions, please send them to Cousin Matthew, the Wimsey family's archivist. I'll assume, absent anything to the contrary, that such material is fair game for addition to this Web site, with due attribution.

Private mail, and material definitely not intended for publication here, can be sent to my personal e-mail address, which is given below. In any case, of course, you can request whatever treatment you want for your material.

Attribution

First, relative to matter from the Lord Peter list, we've reached a consensus that what's posted in that public forum is potential material for this collection, barring a request to the contrary. As new people show up and contribute, I'll try to assure that they either join in the consensus or opt out of it.

For matter that's posted there or sent to Cousin Matthew, here are the general rules on attribution.

Do let me know if you want a different treatment for what is, after all, your intellectual property.
 

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