Editing Thrones, Dominations (section)

==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 wedding. 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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Reynolds |first=Barbara |title=Dorothy L Sayers: Her Life and Soul |publisher=Hodder and Stoughton |year=1993 |page=340 |isbn=0-340-58151-4}}</ref>

She apparently worked on it for some months during 1936, but does not appear to have done so thereafter;<ref name="McGregor/Lewis"/> it has been suggested that this is due at least in part to the [[Edward VIII abdication crisis|constitutional crisis]] of that year surrounding [[Edward VIII of the United Kingdom|Edward VIII]] and his relationship with [[Wallis Simpson]].<ref name="McGregor/Lewis">{{cite book |last=Kuhn McGregor |first=Robert |last2=Lewis |first2=Ethan |title=Conundrums for the Long Week-end: England, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Lord Peter Wimsey |publisher=Kent State University Press |year=2000 |page=199 |isbn=9780873386654 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gZeYismDtEAC&dq=paton+walsh+thrones&pg=PP14}}</ref>

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".<ref name="McGregor/Lewis"/>

Sayers' notes for the work were found among her papers after her death in 1957,<ref name="oates"/> and were acquired in 1976 by the Wade Center at [[Wheaton College, Illinois]]. They consisted of a number of complete scenes from the beginning of the story and a few diagrams, including a multi-coloured representation of the interactions of the characters. By 1985 there were plans to publish the manuscript as it stood, together with some of the other short Wimsey pieces, both published and unpublished,<ref>{{cite book |last=Dale |first=Alzina Stone |title=Dorothy L. Sayers: A Centenary Celebration |publisher=iUniverse |year=2005 |chapter=Thrones, Dominations: Unfinished Testament to Friendship? |isbn=9780595340774 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U3KuOpZ256EC}}</ref> but these failed due to the death of Sayers' son and heir Anthony Fleming in that year. In 1996 the literary [[trustee]]s of the estate approached novelist Jill Paton Walsh and asked her to look at the material with a view to completing the novel. She was also able to refer to a typescript which had been found in a safe at Sayers' former literary agents and which differed in some respects from the manuscript version.<ref name="greenbay">{{cite web |url=http://www.greenbay.co.uk/books/folio.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010301202248/http://www.greenbay.co.uk/books/folio.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 March 2001 |title=Thrones, Dominations |last=Paton Walsh |first=Jill |year=1998 |publisher=Green Bay |access-date=2008-09-23}}</ref>

The scenes were not ordered or numbered, and had to be arranged in logical order by Paton Walsh to constitute the first six chapters of the book. The remainder of the story had to be constructed from almost no data, based on what had already been written, but Paton Walsh has said that Sayers' notes make it clear who the murderer would be.<ref name="greenbay"/> The book was published in February 1998.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hodder.co.uk/book_details.asp?book=4816 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305204459/https://www.hodder.co.uk/book_details.asp?book=4816 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2016-03-05 |title=Thrones, Dominations publication details from Hodder and Stoughton |access-date=2008-09-24}}</ref> Jill Paton Walsh followed it in 2002 with another Wimsey/Vane novel, ''[[A Presumption of Death]]'', set during [[World War II]] and based on some short wartime writings of Sayers known as "[[The Wimsey Papers]]".