Busman's Honeymoon

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Busman's Honeymoon is a 1937 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her eleventh (and last) featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.

Plot introduction

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry and go to spend their honeymoon at the country house, Talboys, which he has bought as a present for her. What is supposed to be a break from their usual routine of solving crimes (him) and writing about them (her) turns into an investigation of how the man from whom Lord Peter bought Talboys ended up dead at the bottom of the cellar steps with his head bashed in.

Explanation of the novel's title

A "busman's holiday" is when a man who drives a bus for a living would spend his holiday traveling somewhere on a bus, so for him it's no break from his usual routine. By association anyone who holidays by doing his normal job is taking a "busman's holiday".

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Busman's Honeymoon first saw the light of day as a stage play by Sayers and Muriel St. Clare Byrne, which opened in December 1936.

A 1940 film version, based as much on the play as on the novel, starred Robert Montgomery as Peter and Constance Cummings as Harriet. The movie was released in the United States as Haunted Honeymoon.

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