George Orwell was highly critical of this aspect of the Wimsey books: "... Even she is not so far removed from "Peg's Paper" as might appear at a casual glance. It is, after all, a very ancient trick to write novels with a lord for a hero. Where Miss Sayers has shown more astuteness than most is in perceiving that you can carry that kind of thing off a great deal better if you pretend to treat it as a joke. By being, on the surface, a little ironical about Lord Peter Wimsey and his noble ancestors, she is enabled to lay on the snobbishness ('his lordship' etc.) much thicker than any overt snob would dare to do". In fact, Sayers took the trouble to make the character halfway plausible by having his manner result from the stress of fighting in the Great War (which included an episode of being buried alive). Wimsey was not like that before the War, but afterward attempted to cope with his haunting memories by adopting “a mask of impenetrable frivolity”. Thus, it is Wimsey himself who is laying it on thick, since the character requires that type of mockery, either of himself or of public perceptions of his class.