Give me your Harriet Vanes!

October 19, 2017 1:40 AM

I've been re-reading my dogeared Dorothy L Sayers books, specifically the ones featuring Harriet Vane. And I want more like that.

So I am after novels or nonfiction featuring strong, independent women who face trials and come through them in interesting ways. Either written in the 1920s and 30s, or set around then (or maybe a bit earlier).

What have you got, hive mind?

posted by altolinguistic to Writing & Language (19 answers total)

Best answer: Have you read the new Vane/Wimsey books by Jill Paton Walsh? I think there are four. (She also has the Imogen Quy series which is kind of in the same mold, although I don’t think they are set that early.)

Also, I have not read it yet, but I have heard great things about Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart.
posted by bluebird at 2:18 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Oh, of course, there are also the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie R. King!
posted by bluebird at 2:22 AM on October 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Best answer: YES to the Russell books! They are great. Same vein (Vane?) and I think right on target for what you are looking for.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 2:23 AM on October 19, 2017

Best answer: Perhaps the Phryne Fisher mysteries? 1920's wealthy feminist Melbourne flapper detective. And she's a Sayers fan to boot.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:35 AM on October 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Best answer: it was written about 20 years before the period you mention but Miss Cayley's Adventures might fit the bill! It's free on Project Gutenberg.
posted by Naanwhal at 3:07 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: My partner is an avid Dorothy Sayers reader and she suggests the Dandy Gilver books by Catriona McPherson.
posted by Chairboy at 3:32 AM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I also love books like this! Some authors to look into: Darcie Wilde, Kate Saunders, maybe Jacqueline Winspear and Ashley Weaver. I also like the Amy Stewart books but wouldn't really compare her to Sayers, same with the Phryne Fisher ones. If you are willing to read books written for a younger audience, check out Robin Stevens--she is very influenced by Sayers and Christie and her books are really charming.
posted by leesh at 5:57 AM on October 19, 2017

Best answer: There's the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters.
posted by BibiRose at 6:50 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: From the period, there are the Ngaio Marsh books. Her protagonist is a man, Chief Inspector Alleyn, who meets a fascinating artist in one of the books (Artists in Crime?) and they have an ongoing story in subsequent books. They are less satisfying than Peter and Harriet, but isn't everyone?
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:03 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I'd try Cold Comfort Farm for setting, tone and main character, though it's a sardonic parody rather than an earnest mystery.
posted by Diablevert at 10:54 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Do you know David Roberts's crime series about Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne? They are pretty clearly based on Peter and Harriet. Not anything like as good, of course, nothing is, but you might like to try them.

Yes, it's Artists in Crime in which Alleyn meets the artist, Agatha Troy.

You might like South Riding by Winifred Holtby. Not crime, but a novel of the same sort of period about an independent woman.

In biographies, you might be interested in Doreen Wallace (1897-1989), Writer and Social Campaigner (sorry, link is to my own review). Wallace was a friend of Sayers and one of the characters in Gaudy Night was based on her.

There are also good biographies of some of the women crime writers. The Adventures of Margery Allingham by Julia Jones - I haven't read this 2009 revision but I have read the earlier version and thought it good. Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime by Joanne Drayton. Several biographies of Sayers as you probably know.

Also, Nicola Upson's crime series in which Josephine Tey is the detective.

Other biographies of independent women of the period: Nancy Spain (though born in 1917, so maybe a bit late for you); The Queen of Whale Cay; Katherine Mansfield (link is to a pretty negative review). There are plenty of biographies of Bloomsbury women and of suffragists, which would probably fit your criteria.

You might also like A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940. I'm getting a bit far away from Harriet here though - more Annie Wilson.

Oh, and I really liked Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War, by Virginia Nicholson.
posted by paduasoy at 11:46 AM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: To totally ignore your time period preference: try the sci-fi of Lois McMaster Bujold, especially the Vorkosigan saga and even more especially those featuring Ekaterin (some aspects of her story are inspired by Harriet Vane's). A good place to start is Komarr -- a book I find un-put-downable even on the dozenth+ read -- or A Civil Campaign, a really fun comedy/romance with a main romance featuring pretty direct allusions, plot-wise and emotion-wise, to Gaudy Night (Sayers is one of the book's dedicatees).
posted by anotherthink at 12:15 PM on October 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You might enjoy the Haunting Investigation series by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Haunting Investigation. It's set in 1920s Philadelphia with an upper-crust young woman who becomes an investigative journalist, with the help of a gentleman haunt. I think there are three published and a fourth in the works. I think you might like the pacing and information.
posted by MovableBookLady at 3:52 PM on October 19, 2017

Best answer: Returned because I forgot (or remembered and then forgot) Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver. There are obvious similarities to Miss Marple but I think Miss Silver is more interesting - particularly as she actually makes a living from detection, rather like Miss Climpson. She is slightly late for your criteria - there are three books from the 1930s but mostly they are later. Also the books vary in quality a bit so if you do decide to try them, either Google to make sure you aren't trying a clunker, or try a few.
posted by paduasoy at 5:20 PM on October 19, 2017

Best answer: Came to recommend Bujold -- in at least one of her stories, there's a plot twist that is just flat-out from a Wimsey mystery. Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog is heavily inspired by, and regularly mentions, Harriet and Peter.

(I read the Jill Paton Walsh books. I overwhelmingly do not recommend them, especially the last one, The [something I forget what] Scholar, which so utterly fails to get Harriet's character my jaw actually dropped at a specific scene.)
posted by kalimac at 7:44 PM on October 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you so much, everyone - these provide me with a good list that should keep me going until it's time to read my DLS volumes again :-)

Oh, and I too have failed to enjoy the Jill Paton Walsh sequels (the first was the best, I think) but will read the new one anyway.
posted by altolinguistic at 3:35 AM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

(I read the Jill Paton Walsh books. I overwhelmingly do not recommend them, especially the last one, The [something I forget what] Scholar, which so utterly fails to get Harriet's character my jaw actually dropped at a specific scene.

Nthing this. The first one - Thrones, Dominations - based on Sayer's partial drafting and notes is passable. Everything else is just awful fanfic.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:05 PM on October 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Came back again to say The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey - the characters of Marion and her mother meet your criteria.
posted by paduasoy at 4:10 AM on November 12, 2017

... though slightly late, 1948.
posted by paduasoy at 4:12 AM on November 12, 2017