Barbara L. Prescott, Stanford University

During her first term at Oxford, in 1912, Dorothy L. Sayers along with a friend, Amphyllis (Amphy) Middlemore, started a women’s first-year student literary group which Dorothy named the Mutual Admiration Society for, “… if we didn’t, the rest of College would.” The mission of the society was to encourage one another’s creative writing, and several of the women in the M.A.S. retained life-long friendships.  One perspective may be to view this Oxford women’s literary group, headed by Sayers, as an earlier but similar society to the later and more famous Inklings.

The purpose of this paper is to take a closer look at the three years of the M.A.S., the student members, their friendships, their literary work, and their influence upon the writing and life of Dorothy L. Sayers. During the years 1912-1915, the society provided a safe environment for its women student members to share and encourage literary writing and offered the opportunity for these women to bond in friendship. The original letters, notebooks, and manuscripts of Dorothy L. Sayers which are housed at the Marion Wade Center in Wheaton, IL reference Sayers' M.A.S. experience and provide the basis for my own research into her Oxford student years.