Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) was an English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic. After winning first class honours from Somerville College, Oxford, at a time when women were not awarded degrees, she worked as an advertising copywriter. In 1923 she published her first novel, Whose Body?, which introduced the upper-class amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey; she went on to write ten more crime fiction novels about Wimsey. From the mid-1930s she wrote plays, mostly on religious themes; the play cycle The Man Born to Be King, broadcast in 1941 and 1942, was a radio dramatisation of the life of Jesus, which was initially controversial, but was soon recognised as an important work.
From the early 1940s onward she focused on translating the three books
of Dante's Divine Comedy into colloquial English; her first two translations were published in 1949 and 1955. She died unexpectedly during the translation of the third book, aged 64.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_L._Sayers
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1861:
American Civil War: Jefferson Davis was named the provisional president of the Confederate States of America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis
1907:
More than 3,000 women in London participated in the Mud March, the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_March_%28suffragists%29
1976:
The Australian Defence Force was formed by the integration of the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy, and the Royal Australian Air Force. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Defence_Force
2016:
Two Meridian commuter trains collided head-on at Bad Aibling in southeastern Germany, leaving 12 dead and 85 others injured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Aibling_rail_accident
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
splay: 1. (transitive) 2. To spread, spread apart, or spread out (something); to expand. 3. (chiefly architecture) To construct a bevel or slope on (something, such as the frame or jamb of a door or window); to bevel, to slant, to slope. 4. (computing theory) To rearrange (a splay tree) so that a desired element is placed at the root. 5. (pathology) To dislocate (a body part such as a shoulder bone). 6. (obsolete) To unfurl or unroll (a banner or flag). 7. (intransitive) 8. To have, or lie in, an oblique or slanted position. 9. To spread out awkwardly; to sprawl. [...] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/splay
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
All is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most. --Crime and Punishment https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment