Episode 62: The Literary Friendship of Dorothy and Jack

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life, our hosts Angelina, Thomas and Cindy have a special guest on the podcast. Gina Dalfonzo is an author whose work has been featured in First Things, The Atlantic, Christianity Today, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Gospel Coalition, and more! Gina has written a new book called Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis which is the topic of discussion on today’s episode. Angelina opens the conversation asking Gina to share how she came to write this book exploring the relationship between Lewis and Sayers.

Other topics explored in this episode are the following: the influence of Oxford in Dorothy Sayers’ life and work, how Dorothy and Jack finally met one another, Lewis’ personal distaste for detective novels, and his praise for Sayers’ other work. They also talk at length about how Sayers and Lewis support each other in pushing the boundaries of their literary careers.

Find Gina Dalfonzo:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ginadalfonzo.author Twitter: https://twitter.com/ginadalfonzo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gina.dalfonzo/ Dickensblog: https://dickensblog.typepad.com/

Listen to The Literary Life:

Commonplace Quotes:

For life in general, there is but one decree: youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret.
Benjamin Disraeli

There’s always surrender to humiliation and crucifixion, an emptying, before the glory. There’s no way around it. For my own part, I wish there were. Emptiness comes before fullness. We have to empty ourselves of anything that crowds out the life or grace of God in our lives. When we cooperate with the Spirit in this way, we become receptacles of grace.
Marlena Graves

People of former times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral.
Heinrich Heine

When the pioneers of university training for women demanded that women should be admitted to the universities, the cry went up at once: “Why should women want to know about Aristotle?” The answer is NOT that all women wwould be the better for knowing about Aristotle–still less, as Lord Tennyson seemed to think, that they would be more companionable wives for their husbands if they did know about Aristotle–but simply: “What women want as a class is irrelevant. I want to know about Aristotle. It is true that most women care nothing about him, and a great many male undergraduates turn pale and faint at the thought of him–but I, eccentric individual that I am, do want to know about Aristotle, and I submit that there is nothing in my shape or bodily functions which need prevent my knowing about him.
Dorothy L. Sayers

They Told Me Heraclitus

by William Johnson Cory

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but these he cannot take.

Book List:

Dorothy and Jack by Gina Dalfonzo

The Gospel in Dickens by Gina Dalfonzo

The Way Up is Down by Marlena Graves

Writing for the Masses by Christine A. Colón

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay

Are Women Human by Dorothy Sayers

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

Phantastes by George MacDonald

Letters to an American Lady by C. S. Lewis

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Connect with Us:

You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/

Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also!

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