unsure whether it would ring true with the reading public". Reynolds quotes a letter that Sayers wrote to her publisher Victor Gollancz on 14 September 1932: In her 1941 book The Mind of the Maker Sayers wrote: "I undertook (not very successfully) to present a contrast of two 'cardboard' worlds, equally fictitious—the world of advertising and the world of the post-war 'Bright Young People'. (It was not very successful, because I knew and cared much more about advertising than about Bright Youth)". But she went on to quote a reader who pointed out that "Peter Wimsey, who represents reality, never appears in either world except in disguise". She commented, "It was perfectly true; and I had never noticed it. With all its defects of realism, there had been some measure of integral truth about the book's Idea, since it issued, without my conscious connivance, in a true symbolism". Background Most of the action of the novel takes place in an advertising agency, a setting with which Sayers was very familiar as she had herself been employed as a copywriter at S. H. Benson's agency, located at Kingsway from 1922 to 1931. In chapter 12 of the novel she quotes the slogan "Guinness is good for you", from her own jingle "If he can say as you can. / Guinness is good for you / How grand to be a Toucan / Just think what Toucan do". Lord Peter, as Death Bredon, comes up with a brilliant advertising campaign for a cigarette, "Whiffling around Britain," which recalls the Colman's Mustard Club campaign on which Sayers herself worked extensively. Her colleague Bobby Bevan was the inspiration for one of the characters in the novel, Mr Ingleby. Adaptations Murder Must Advertise was adapted by Bill Craig for television in 1973 as a BBC TV mini-series starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey. A six-part radio adaptation by Alistair Beaton was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1979, again with Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey. References External links 1933 British novels Novels by Dorothy L. Sayers Novels set in London Novels about advertising British mystery novels Victor Gollancz Ltd books Novels set in the 1930s British novels adapted into television shows