Busman’s Honeymoon

TO MURIEL ST. CLARE BYRNE, HELEN SIMPSON AND MARJORIE BARBER

Dear Muriel, Helen and Bar,

With what extreme of womanly patience you listened to the tale of Busman’s Honeymoon while it was being written, the Lord He knoweth. I do not like to think how many times I tired the sun with talking-and if at any time they had told me you were dead, I should easily have believed that I had talked you into your graves. But you have strangely survived to receive these thanks. You, Muriel, were in some sort a predestined victim, since you wrote with me the play to which this novel is but the limbs and outward flourishes; my debt and your long-suffering are all the greater. You, Helen, and Bar were wantonly sacrificed on the altar of that friendship of which the female sex is said to be incapable; let the lie stick i’ the wall! To all three I humbly bring, I dedicate with tears, this sentimental comedy.

It has been said, by myself and others, that a love-interest is only an intrusion upon a detective story.” But to the characters involved, the detective-interest might well seem an irritating intrusion upon their love-story. This book deals with such a situation. It also provides some sort of answer to many kindly inquiries as to how Lord Peter and his Harriet solved their matrimonial problem. If there is but a ha’porth of detection to an intolerable deal of saccharine, let the occasion be the excuse.

Yours in all gratitude,

Dorothy L. Sayers.

MARRIAGES

WIMSEY-VANE. On the 8th October at St Cross Church Oxford, Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, son of the late Gerald Mortimer Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, to Harriet Vane, daughter of the late Henry Vane, M.D., of Great Pagford, Herts.