This book is the first collection of short stories about Lord Peter Wimsey by Dorothy L. Sayers.

All of them were included in later complete collections. The Abominable History of the Man with Copper FingersThe Entertaining Episode of the Article in QuestionThe Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's WillThe Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the BagThe Unprincipled Affair of the Practical JokerThe Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of ContentionThe Vindictive Story of the Footsteps That RanThe Bibulous Business of a Matter of TasteThe Learned Adventure of the Dragon's HeadThe Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen StomachThe Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No FaceThe Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali BabaNOTES TO THE SOLUTIONBorn in Oxford, Sayers was raised in rural East Anglia and educated at Godolphin School in Salisbury and Somerville College, Oxford, graduating with first-class honors in medieval French.

She worked as an advertising copywriter between 1922 and 1929 before success as an author brought her financial independence. Her first novel Whose Body? was published in 1923.

Between then and 1939, she wrote ten more novels featuring the upper-class amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. In 1930, in Strong Poison, she introduced a leading female character, Harriet Vane, the object of Wimsey's love.

Harriet appears sporadically in future novels, resisting Lord Peter's marriage proposals until Gaudy Night in 1935, six novels later. .