Mon
8
Mar '10
- ISBN13: 9780061043512
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Murder is hardly the best way for Lord Peter and his bride, the famous mystery writer Harriet Vane, to start their honeymoon.It all begins when the former owner of their newly acquired estate is found quite nastily dead in the cellar. And what Lord Peter had hoped would be a very private and romantic stay in the country soon turns into a most baffling case, what with the misspelled “notise” to the milkman and the intriguing condition of the dead man — not a spot o… More >>
Busman’s Honeymoon
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The mystery, as always with Dorothy L. Sayers, was good but not being a linguist, I didn’t appreciate the amount of french that was included. Rating: 3 / 5
This entry in the Lord Peter Whimsey/Harriet Vane series is a little unusual because it has more humor than usual. You get to see a more light hearted Lord Peter, at least until the murder. Agatha Christi concentrates a little more on the relations between Lord Peter and Harriet, starting just after thier engagement and continuing through the honeymoon. You will have to sit through a lot of letter and journal reading in the beginning, but it is worth wading through for the background. A delightful story. Rating: 4 / 5
The short of the matter: Do NOT touch this edition unless you are fluent in French and Latin AND enjoy misprinted words in your reading.
There are *pages* of untranslated French text in the book. And plenty of Latin phrases untranslated and unexplained. No notes, no footnotes, no explanations of obsolete jargon words and idioms.
It appears that the publishers do not believe in editors, and their idea of the publisher’s job is not to omit whole chapters, if possible. Even simple proofreading is not to be expected form HarperTorch books.
It is a great novel, which goes well beyond the mystery genre in its insight and social commentary. Dorothy Sayers’ writing is always delightful, and this is one of the best novels (if not the best) in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. Much more is brought to light in this mystery than a murder and a murderer: Dorothy Sayers tackles issues of social class differences, personal relationships, the meaning of marriage and long lasting effects of war on everyday life — all without ever taking the reader’s eyes away from the page-turning mystery plot.
The novel definitely deserves better respect and attention than HarperTorch has given it. This sort of publishing is a disgrace to the trade. Even if HarperTorch simply republished a former edition, it was their job to make sure that the edition they were sending to print was readable and well edited. They should be ashamed for putting their name on such a mishandled text.
Rating: 2 / 5
“Oh, rapture! Oh, bountiful Jehovah! Oh, joy for all our former woes a thousand times repaid!” … “You blasphemed the aspidistra, and something awful HAS come down that chimney!” How can we resist an intelligent, deft, good-humored protagonist like Lord Peter Wimsey, here assisted by his new bride Harriet Vane? They honeymoon in the countryside at a newly-purchased house, whose previous owner turns up — not early in the novel — quite starkly & mysteriously dead in the cellar. With that unfortunate find begins a merry, mirthful, sharp, scintillating murder mystery which anyone will enjoy.
The 30 pages of letters & diaries which open the book are slowish going, but do keep going … This reader’s first experience with a Dorothy Sayers mystery was marvellous & rewarding. “Busman’s Honeymoon” is literature, if we can rob that august noun of any suggestion of the ponderous, the boring, the dull — it is literature that effervesces! Rating: 5 / 5
What I love about this book is the way Dorothy Sayers manages to interweave a complex mystery story with the gentle story of the beginning of a marriage. This book is funny, tender, and occasionally sad. It brings all the threads of the earlier Lord Peter/Harriet Vane books together. This book is my favourite of the Lord Peter books, along with Gaudy Night. Rating: 5 / 5