C S Lewis suggested that Dorothy Sayers's letters would one day be recognized as among the finest epistles produced in the 20th century. In fact, this first volume, covering the years from Sayers's early childhood to the later years of personal tragedy and literary triumph, shows a broad-ranging talent and reveals a rich life full of language study, poetry, and books.

Barbara Reynolds, author of the celebrated Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul, has selected a cross section of letters to represent the full spectrum of Sayers's expressions and emotions. Most troubling are those desperate letters to John Cournos, the novelist's lover and the man who ultimately jilted her. Also fascinating are her notes to her illegitimate son John Anthony (fathered by Bill White, a "car salesman and motor engineer"), messages expressing deep love that are, simultaneously, touched with the restraint of a mother held distant by social convention. Beyond these very personal moments, however, one traces the budding and then flowering of a literary career. Sayers's years at Oxford and after are peppered with references to her reading, snippets of her writing, and records of her travels in France and elsewhere. As P.D. James writes in the preface to the volume: "by the end of 1936, when this volume ends ... she could look back on half-a-lifetime of courageous living and ultimate achievement.... The enjoyment with which I read this first volume of letters is matched only by my happy expectation of pleasure to come." --Patrick O'Kelley