Lord Peter Wimsey Lord Peter Wimsey Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is the fictional protagonist in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers (and their continuation by Jill Paton Walsh). A dilettante who solves mysteries for his own amusement, Wimsey is an archetype for the British gentleman detective. Lord Peter is often assisted by his valet and former batman, Mervyn Bunter; his good friend and later brother-in-law, police detective Charles Parker; and in a few books by Harriet Vane, who becomes his wife. Born in 1890 and ageing in real time, Wimsey is described as being of average
The King and the Beggar-maid telling Peter Wimsey, "You think you can sit up there all day, like King Cophetua being noble and generous and expecting people to be brought to your feet. Of course people will say, "look what he did for that woman – Isn't it marvellous of him!" Sayers also refers to the story in "The Five Red Herrings", where Mrs. Farren looks at Wimsey "like a distressed beggar-maid beginning to wonder whether Cophetua was not something of a trial in family life." In Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire novel "Framley Parsonage" (1861), Lucy Robarts likens her relationship with Lord Lufton, who has proposed