   thrones, dominations is a lord peter wimsey murder mystery novel that dorothy l. sayers began writing but abandoned, and which remained as fragments and notes at her death. it was completed by jill paton walsh and published in 1998. the title is a quotation from john milton's paradise lost and refers to two categories of angel in the christian angelic hierarchy. ==background== sayers had charted the developing relationship between lord peter wimsey and harriet vane over four published novels, culminating in busman's honeymoon, the action of which takes place immediately following the couple's marriage. the characters appeared thereafter only in a few short stories and other published pieces, revealing only glimpses of their married life. according to sayers' friend and biographer barbara reynolds, sayers had begun work in 1936 on thrones, dominations, a murder mystery novel in which the wimsey marriage was to be contrasted with those of two other couples. she apparently worked on it for some months during 1936 but does not appear to have done so thereafter; it has been suggested that this is due at least in part to the constitutional crisis of that year surrounding edward viii and his relationship with wallis simpson. the events of december 1936 onwards overtook the story, with the abdication altering how sayers' potential audience would interpret a tale of contrasting marriages. in 1938, she declared in a letter that she had come to dislike the book, and had "great difficulty doing anything about it". sayers's notes for the work were found among her papers after her death in 1957, and were acquired in 1
1998_novels Crime_novels English_novels Hodder_&_Stoughton_books Novels_by_Dorothy_L._Sayers Novels_published_posthumously Unfinished_novels Wheaton_College_(Illinois)