Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) was a well-known British writer. She produced a corpus of religious and academic works, including a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, but is best-known for her detective novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.  Gaudy Night (1935) is set in a fictional Women’s College at Oxford. The principle “detective” is alumna and successful writer Harriet Vane, who featured in several earlier Wimsey novels. Sayers herself attended Somerville College, one of first women’s colleges in Oxford, finishing with first class honors in languages and literature in 1915. Clearly modeled on Sayers’ own experiences, Gaudy Night explores the mores of academia and the role of women during this period, and has been described as “the first feminist mystery novel”.  Through the lens of an entertaining mystery-cum-romance, Gaudy Night provokes reflection on how far we have progressed – and not progressed – since the early days of women in academia.