Christian History Home > Issue 70 > I Still Don't Know How He Does It
I Still Don't Know How He Does It
Dorothy Sayers discovers Dante.
Dorothy Sayers | posted 4/01/2001 12:00AM
In 1944 British writer Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957), already famous as the author of Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, holed up in an air raid shelter with Dante's Divine Comedy. She finished Inferno—in Italian—in five days, then wrote the following letter to Charles Williams. She knew Williams through C. S. Lewis's "Inklings" group and through Williams's book on Dante, The Figure of Beatrice. Sayers's fascination with Dante resulted in an ambitious translation of the Comedy (used throughout this issue) and numerous essays and lectures.
24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex
To Charles Williams
16-17 August 1944
Dear Charles,
You say you like getting letters, so I am writing you one to say that I have embarked upon an arduous enterprise for which you are entirely responsible.
Having read The Figure of Beatrice, and coped with "Lewis on Milton" [A Preface to Paradise Lost] and actually re-read the greater part of Paradise Lost in consequence, I cheerfully remarked to a friend that Milton was a thunderingly ...
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