Gaudy Night vs The Nine Tailors: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Lord Wimsey, Wimsey, Private investigators, England, Fiction
Gaudy Night
“Harriet Vane sat at her writing-table and started out into Mecklenburg Square.”
Harriet Vane attends her Gaudy (reunion) at Oxford to find a mystery brewing. The first part of the book involves Harriet and the dons (professors) at her college. Lord Peter Wimsey also helps with the investigation by…
vs
The Nine Tailors
“plunged down the side of the dyke into the deep ditch beyond, where the black spikes of a thorn hedge stood bleak and unwelcoming in the glare of the headlights. Right and left, before and behind, the fen lay shrouded.”
When his sexton finds a corpse in the wrong grave, the rector of Fenchurch St Paul asks Lord Peter Wimsey to find out who the dead man was and how he came to be there. The lore of bell-ringing and a brilliantly-evoked…
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- Gaudy Night has the widest readership — 32988 ratings behind its score.
How to choose
Scores by source
| Gaudy Night | The Nine Tailors | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 4.2 (32988) | 4.0 (1859) |
| Hardcover | 4.2 (50) | 3.9 (43) |
| Google Books | 5.0 (1) | — |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (33) | 4.5 (23) |
Reception
| Gaudy Night | The Nine Tailors | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 32988 | 1859 |
| Editions | 72 | 69 |
| Citations | — | 22 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 30834 | 13484 |
| Reading it now | 2667 | — |
| Written reviews | 2899 | 1859 |
| Wikipedia attention | 1565 | 1375 |
| Pages | — | 287 |