Peter Wimsey Books in Order
Peter Wimsey appears in 19 books, published between 1923 and 2013. The first book is Whose Body? (1923) and the newest is The Late Scholar (2013). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 19
- Published
- 1923–2013
- Confirmed
- 19 of 19 titles
- Pages on record
- 5,513 in 17 of 19 books
- Reading time
- 92–138 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 5,513 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 17 of 19 titles with a page count on record.
Lord Peter Wimsey is the investigator at the centre of Dorothy L. Sayers's English detective novels. The sequence opens with Whose Body? (1923) and takes in Clouds of Witness (1926), Unnatural Death (1927) and Strong Poison (1930). Harriet Vane shares a second line with Wimsey. Nineteen catalogued books carry the Wimsey name, reaching The Late Scholar (2013), and Jill Paton Walsh is credited on four of them.
How many Peter Wimsey books are there?
Peter Wimsey appears in 19 books, released between 1923 and 2013.
Peter Wimsey Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 19 Peter Wimsey books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 119232123/4
- 219262793/4
- 319272643/4
- 419283363/4
- 519282433/4
- 61930–3/4
- 719313683/4
- 819324483/4
- 919331913/4
- 1019333683/4
- 1119343973/4
- 1219355123/4
- 1319374033/4
- 1419393043/4
- 1519731243/4
- 1619983123/4
- 1720023843/4
- 182010–3/4
- 1920133683/4
Do you have to read Peter Wimsey books in order?
You should read the Peter Wimsey books in publication order, the order of the numbered table above. The catalogue does not record whether each Peter Wimsey book also stands alone.
Where to start with Peter Wimsey
Start with Whose Body? (1923), the earliest published title.
What is the newest Peter Wimsey book?
The Late Scholar (2013) is the newest Peter Wimsey book released so far.
Is there a new Peter Wimsey book coming?
No next Peter Wimsey book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Peter Wimsey at a glance
- No recent titles
- The newest Peter Wimsey title on record dates from 2013, 13 years ago. No later title is catalogued.
- Release pace
- Peter Wimsey books have appeared about one every 5 years on average.
- Length
- 5,513 pages across the 17 of 19 books with a recorded length, a median of 336 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most Peter Wimsey books, 9 of 19, were published in the 1930s.
- Attribution
- Of the 19 titles, 15 are credited to Dorothy L. Sayers and 4 to Jill Paton Walsh.
What the Peter Wimsey books are about
All 19 Peter Wimsey books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: private investigators is tagged on 18 of 19. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- Private investigators 18 of 19 books
- Lord Wimsey, Peter (Fictitious character) 17 of 19 books
- Wimsey, peter, lord (fictitious character) 11 of 19 books
- Mystery & detective 9 of 19 books
- Harriet Vane (Fictitious character) 7 of 19 books
- Mystery & detective, women sleuths 5 of 19 books
- England 4 of 19 books
- Mystery & detective, traditional 4 of 19 books
- Short stories 3 of 19 books
- Crime 2 of 19 books
- English fiction 2 of 19 books
Series featuring Peter Wimsey
Each series linked below has its own reading-order page.