Dorothy L. Sayer was an Oxford-educated scholar and intellectual, and her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, classics of the genre, are filled with many references and phrases that today are arcane or unknown, even to well-read people. (Knowledge of Latin and French helps as well in reading DLS.) So, an annotated edition of the Lord Peter Wimsey books has been a need for some time now, particularly in our illiterate age.

Those who have visited his website know that Bill Peschel has done yeoman's service (OK, just look that one up) in annotating Sayers' books. Now, we have one in print, and a treat it is. The footnotes are almost as interesting as the mystery, at least to those of us who already have read "Whose Body?" They explain so many words and phrases, and elucidate so many references, that I have always wondered about but have never bothered to look up. Small things like, where the word "deuce" (as in the phrase, "The deuce you say!") comes from. Or the phrase, "You're a brick." And Peschels' comments in the footnotes are frequently witty and worthy of Lord Peter Wimsey himself.

"Whose Body?", while entertaining, is generally regarded by Sayers fans as the weakest of the LPW mysteries. This was her first LPW book, and Sayers was still feeling her way around with the character. There is a forced archness and artificiality, and stilted dialogue, that one does not find in the subsequent books. Therefore, it is possible that Peschel chose this, the first-published of the LPW mysteries, for his first annotated LPW mystery, because it was the first to be out of copyright. If that is the case, then one hopes that the next-published LPW book in the canon, and one of the best, "Clouds of Witness," will be out soon. Whatever the failings of "Whose Body?", the mystery itself is a corker, involving the apparently unconnected disappearance of a prominent financier and the discovery of an unidentified naked dead body in a bathtub.

Some reviewers have complained that there are too many footnotes. And it is true that Peschel explains some words (like "rankle") that most educated people would not need explained or defined. But I would rather that Peschel erred on the side of too many rather than too few; the footnotes are, after all, the raison d'etre for this edition. Also included are some interesting and entertaining little essays in the back on relevant topics too extensive to fit into footnotes.

Well, done, Mr. Peschel, and thank you. On to "Clouds of Witness," please!

Loved this book. Lots of helpful information. I've been reading Lord Peter since I was a youngster in the 1980s and it's amazing how much I simply glossed over without knowing what it meant. Kudos to Peschel for his excellent research. The notes to this volume make an already great story even more meaningful. Peschel has annotated other LP mysteries too, and they are available on his website, [...]

I do have one minor quibble about Peschel's writing; he has a tendency to mix up verb tenses, so his essays and longer notes can be confusing. He needs to get an editor (or a better one, if he's using one now, as he's getting gypped) with a grammar specialty. But that's a small potato compared to the overwhelming volume of research Peschel has put into this book and the other annotations. Real labors of love, obviously, since Lord Peter probably doesn't have a huge following anymore, and there's probably little market for this sort of thing. It's a shame, because the stories are fun, the characters are dynamite, the dialogue is pithy, and the ethical problems that frequently come in on the heels of the mystery are downright grand and add depth to the stories. Peschel's work augments the stories laudably. I only wish he could do all of them; he might even have been able to make sense of "The Five Red Herrings." Alas.

Meaning it functions extremely well as an e-book. There are several maps and they are very readable in the e-book. The links to the annotations, and back to the story, worked flawlessly. There is a real cover graphic of the book, in full color. THANK YOU ! I am so tired of the monotonous, generic covers. There is a working table of contents ! ( It is the little things that make life sweet )

Of course this story is one of the truly great Mysteries. This first book in the series is AN ABSOLUTE MUST HAVE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO THIS WIMSEY CHARACTER THINKS HE IS.

Just watching the TV portrayals I thought he was a man of little intellect and even less action; getting everyone around him to do all the thinking and leg work while he stood around in a monocle.

I was wrong. Whimsy is the real stuff and very human under all those impeccably turned out clothes.

Thank you Bunter.

I had no trouble with all the annotations; they are simply numbered links in the text after all. If you are at a complete loss as to what D.L. Sayers is writing about you can very quickly find out by touching the link and be back to the story, exactly where you were, just as quick. If you have a general idea and want to skip the annotation it is easy to get used to over looking the link numbers. I don't know how it could be made simpler unless of coarse if the word was the link but that might be confusing because often it is a phrase that is the subject of the annotation.

You can, while you are at the linked annotation, read a few more to get the gist of what is to come. I didn't do that but may try it on the second voyage.

I would buy this book again and I highly recommend it.

Knowing I will read it again more than once I look forward to spending more time with the annotations and maps in those future forays in to the story.

Thank you Bill Peschel for all your hard work. Great job !

The delightful Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, written by Dorothy Sayers, are set in England between the two World Wars. Inevitably, references to current customs and events have become outdated and, in some cases, difficult to decipher from a distance of 90 years. The Complete, Annotated Whose Body? has many intelligent annotations and interesting essays by Bill Peschel that help solve these problems.

I read the Kindle version of the book and it was a delight. Electronic footnotes took me to the annotations and then allowed me to return back to the text of the novel. Obscure words are defined, biographical information is provided for people named in the book, current events are explained, and maps help locate the action. I have always enjoyed this novel, but now I understand even more of what's going on in it. It is also nice to have good translations of the various quotations in Greek and Latin and the occasional dialogue in French. Lord Peter often quotes from other books in his conversation and it was a special delight to have these tracked down to the original sources.

I hope that this is the first volume in what will become a complete set of annotated Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. Well done!

...3 stars for the annotated version. The essays are interesting, but the footnotes are extremely annoying and intrusive. There are so many in each chapter--even if you don't read them, their presence disrupts the narrative flow.

According to the annotator, he asked people of his acquaintance who read the book for a list of words and terms they found confusing or unfamiliar. I question both how well-read and how intelligent those people were. Among the endless footnotes were ones for "linen," "undertaker," "ring" (as in call someone on a phone) and "towel-stand" (which one would think was self-explanatory.)

I would strongly recommend that you buy the unannotated version, in order to enjoy the mystery so elegantly crafted by Ms. Sayers.

I read this book many years ago but I still really enjoyed it. Dorothy Sayers was a great mysteries writer and her books are still worht reading.

"Whose Body?" is the first installment in the celebrated Lord Peter Wimsey series of novels about an aristocratic amateur sleuth in post-WWI London. Dorothy L. Sayers' depiction of the social class mores of that period is one of the delights of this novel, and the extensive annotations by Bill Peschel are an invaluable aid for bridging the gap between our time and the setting and characteris in the story. I used the Kindle version of this book which made reading the many annotations easy. Some reviewers have complained that Peschel went overboard by annotating word usage that many readers would already understand or could easily look up in a dictionary. I have some sympathy with this critique, although it seems clear that Peschel chose to err on the side of thoroughness. And, when all is said, Peschel has done a great job of helping readers to more fully appreciate the world of Dorothy L. Sayers and her fictional creation. I highly recommend this annotated edition of "Whose Body?".

I have been a Sayers fan for many years now and am always trying to find time to read or reread another. But not being well-versed in either Latin or French, I have often had to look up certain phrases when my deciphering and/or patience run out; and though there are several excellent cites for such study, I always find that a book is both more convenient and more enjoyable. With that said, I wish to applaud Mr. Peschel for a annotated job well done. He is quite thorough and obviously spent a great deal of timewith this project. The traditional footnote setup is nice and I loved choosing which words/passages to explore further and which to just read on there own. I highly reccomend for any dedicated Sayers lover!

Der Krimi ist jedem Sayers-Fan sattsam bekannt, aber hier kommen eben eine Unmenge von Anmerkungen hinzu. Adressen werden in Beziehung gesetzt, veraltete Begriffe erklärt, gelegentlich gibt es kleine Verweise auf spätere Bücher usw. Das Verhältnis Originaltext : Anmerkungen schätze ich auf 60:40, um da einen Anhaltspunkt zu geben.

Natürlich ist auch öfters etwas dabei, das mir ohnehin klar gewesen war, aber ich denke, da ist für jeden etwas dabei. Der Autor der Anmerkungen hat jedenfalls unheimlich viel Arbeit in dieses Werk investiert und die Anmerkungen auf den Fragen von Testlesern verschiedenen Alters aufgebaut. Die Anmerkungen sind grundsolide, soweit ich das beurteilen kann. Bin sehr zufrieden.

Good story, well written, as you expect from D L Sayers, and lots of period detail. Annotations useful for those terms that have lost their use in modern times.

This was the first book I've read on my new Kindle, and I have to admit that the reason I chose this version, rather than the standard version of "Whose Body?" was simply that it was much cheaper. However, I was glad to have chosen this version after reading it, price aside. Dorothy L Sayers' text is annotated with an extensive set of explanatory notes, which vary from explanation of old fashioned or particularly British terms to potted biographies or images of historical figures or places mentioned in the text. Since I'm English and have been reading classic detective fiction for the last 35 years or so, I did already know quite a lot of the extra information included here, such as most of the vintage slang, how telephones used to work, etc. However, there was plenty I didn't already know, and I was particularly interested by the maps of the locations in the story and the explanations of the historical crimes referred to. For someone unused to English vocabulary or period writing, the annotations would be invaluable, I think.

Personally, I found it easier to look up the footnotes at the end of each chapter in a block, rather than refer to each one as I came across it, so as to disturb the flow of the story less - the Kindle format made it a bit cumbersome to look them all up individually. It was easy to ignore the links when caught up in the story, so I didn't find it a disadvantage in any way to have the extra information available. I think the compiler has done a great job of annotating the text; on those topics where I myself have some knowledge, I only noticed very minor errors, so I would think the research is pretty trustworthy overall.

As for the story itself: I am sure other reviewers have discussed it in detail for the unannotated version of the book. I'd not read "Whose Body?" before, and found it easy to read, well characterised and with an ingenious and entertaining (if implausible) plot; lots of period detail; in fact, exactly what you'd expect from a classic British detective novel set in the 1920s. If you can cope with the embedded class conciousness and inherent anti-Semetism, it's an enjoyable read, but it's no different from other books of its era in including some unthinking prejudice that would be abhorrent today.