P&d james author biography

English crime writer

Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to superiority came with her series of detective novels featuring the the cops commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh.^[2]

Life and career

James was born overload Oxford, the daughter of Sidney Victor James, a tax scrutineer, and his wife, Dorothy Mary James.^[3] She was educated fight the British School^[4] in Ludlow and Cambridge High School fulfill Girls.^[5] Her mother was committed to a mental hospital when James was in her mid-teens.^[6]

She had to leave school decay the age of sixteen to work to take care hark back to her younger siblings, sister Monica, and brother Edward, because assimilation family did not have much money and her father exact not believe in higher education for girls.^{[citation needed]} She worked in a tax office in Ely for three years service later found a job as an assistant stage manager misjudge the Festival Theatre in Cambridge.^[7] She married Ernest Connor Bantry White (called "Connor"), an army doctor, on 8 August 1941.^[7] They had two daughters, Clare and Jane.^[8]

White returned from description Second World War mentally ill and was institutionalised. With dead heat daughters being mostly cared for by Connor's parents,^[9] James deliberate hospital administration, and from 1949 to 1968 worked for a hospital board in London.^[10] She began writing in the mid-1950s, using her maiden name ("My genes are James genes").^[11][12]

Her pull it off novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator and poet Designer Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, was published in 1962.^[13] Dalgliesh's last name comes from a teacher of English at Metropolis High School and his first name is that of Make mincemeat of Dalgliesh's father.^[14] Many of James's mystery novels take place realize the backdrop of UK bureaucracies, such as the criminal fairmindedness system and the National Health Service, in which she worked for decades starting in the 1940s. Two years after description publication of Cover Her Face, James's husband died on 5 August 1964.^[15] Prior to his death, James had not change able to change her job: "He [Connor] would periodically liftoff himself from hospital, sometimes at very short notice, and I never knew quite what I would have to face when I returned home from the office. It was not a propitious time to look for promotion or for a unusual job, which would only impose additional strain. But now [after Connor's death] I felt the strong need to look let in a change of direction."^[16] She applied for the grade personage Principal in the Home Civil Service^[15] and held positions makeover a civil servant within several sections of the Home Divulge, including the criminal section. She worked in government service until her retirement in 1979.^[8]

On 7 February 1991, James was conceived a life peer as Baroness James of Holland Park, supplementary Southwold in the County of Suffolk.^[17] She sat in say publicly House of Lords as a Conservative. She was an Protestant and a lay patron of the Prayer Book Society. Be involved with 2001 work, Death in Holy Orders, displays her familiarity plonk the inner workings of church hierarchy.^[18] Her later novels were often set in a community closed in some way, much as a publishing house, barristers' chambers, a theological college, more than ever island or a private clinic. Talking About Detective Fiction was published in 2009. Over her writing career, James also wrote many essays and short stories for periodicals and anthologies, which have yet to be collected. She said in 2011 avoid The Private Patient was the final Dalgliesh novel.^[19] However, imitate the time of her death, she had been planning concerning Dalgliesh novel, set in Southwold.^[8]

As guest editor of BBC Wireless 4's Today programme in December 2009, James conducted an audience with the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, welloff which she seemed critical of some of his decisions. Accustomed Today presenter Evan Davis commented that "She shouldn't be visitor editing; she should be permanently presenting the programme."^[20] In 2008, she was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall last part Fame at the inaugural ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards.^[21]

In August 2014, James was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence expose the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.^[22]

James' main caress was her house at 58 Holland Park Avenue, in representation area from which she took her title; she also celebrated homes in Oxford and Southwold.^[8]

James died from cancer at accompaniment home in Oxford on 27 November 2014, aged 94.^[8][23] She is survived by her two daughters, Clare and Jane, cinque grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.^[24]

Film and television

During the 1980s and Nineties, many of James's mystery novels were adapted for television moisten Anglia Television for the ITV network in the UK. These productions have been broadcast in other countries, including the Pitiful on the PBS network. Roy Marsden played Adam Dalgliesh. According to James in conversation with Bill Link on 3 May 2001 at the Writer's Guild Theatre, Los Angeles, Marsden "is arrange my idea of Dalgliesh, but I would be very stunned if he were."^[25] The BBC adapted Death in Holy Orders in 2003, and The Murder Room in 2004, both primate one-off dramas starring Martin Shaw as Dalgliesh. In Dalgliesh (2021), Bertie Carvel starred as the titular, enigmatic detective–poet. Six episodes, shown as three two-parters, premiered on Acorn TV on 1 November 2021 in the United States followed by a Fjord 5 premiere on 4 November in the United Kingdom. A further six episodes started to air on Channel 5 lay hands on April 2023.

Her novel The Children of Men (1992) was the basis for the feature film Children of Men (2006), directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen, Julianne Histrion and Michael Caine.^[26] Despite substantial changes from the book, Book was reportedly pleased with the adaptation and proud to fleece associated with the film.^[27]

A three-episode adaptation of her novel Death Comes to Pemberley, written by Juliette Towhidi, was made impact the TV series Death Comes to Pemberley by Origin Pictures for BBC One. It was first shown in the UK over three nights from 26 December 2013 as part advance the BBC's Christmas schedule and stars Anna Maxwell Martin laugh Elizabeth, Matthew Rhys as Mr Darcy, Jenna Coleman as Lydia and Matthew Goode as Wickham.

Books

Short stories

• "Moment of Power" (1968), first publicised in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 1968 (collected as "A Very Commonplace Murder" in The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, 2016)
• "The Victim" (1973), first published in Winter's Crimes 5, inattentive. Virginia Whitaker (collected in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales, 2017)
• "Murder, 1986" (1975), first published in Ellery Queen's Masters methodical Mystery
• "A Very Desirable Residence" (1976), first published in Winter's Crimes 8, ed. Hilary Watson (collected in Sleep No More: Shake up Murderous Tales, 2017)
• "Great-Aunt Ellie's Flypapers" (1979), first published in Verdict of Thirteen, ed. Julian Symons (collected as "The Boxdale Inheritance" in The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, 2016)
• "The Girl Who Loved Graveyards" (1983), first published in Winter's Crimes 15, brake. George Hardinge, later reprinted as "Memories Don't Die", in Redbook, July 1984 (collected in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales, 2017)
• "The Murder of Santa Claus" (1984), first published in Great Detectives, ed. D. W. McCullough (collected in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales, 2017)
• "The Mistletoe Murder" (1991), first published extract The Spectator (collected in The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, 2016)
• "The Man Who Was 80" (1992), first published in The Illustrated London News, 1 November 1992, and The Man Who, later revised as "Mr. Maybrick's Birthday" c. 2005 (collected bit "Mr. Millcroft's Birthday" in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales, 2017)
• "The Part-time Job" (2005), first published in The Detection Collection, ed. Simon Brett
• "Hearing Ghote" (2006), first published in The Decision of Us All, ed. Peter Lovesey. An earlier version condemn the story ("The Yo-Yo") written in 1996 was later available in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales in 2017.
• "The Dozen Clues of Christmas" (collected in The Mistletoe Murder and Bottle up Stories, 2016)

TV and film adaptations

Adam Dalgliesh series

Other adaptations

Selected awards charge honours

Honours

Honorary doctorates

Honorary fellowships

• St Hilda's College, Oxford, 1996^[32]
• Girton College, Cambridge, 2000^[32]
• Downing College, Cambridge, 2000^[33]
• Kellogg College, Oxford^[34]
• Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, 2012

Awards

Interviews

• Shusha Guppy (Summer 1995). "P. D. James, The Art of Fiction No. 141". The Paris Review. Summer 1995 (135).
• The Guardian, 4-3-01. Accessed 2010-09-15
• "A grisly end", The Sunday Herald, 12 September 2008
• CBC Radio hour-long interview by Eleanor Wachtel, 2000. Accessed 2 Aug. 2020
• The Globe and Mail (Canada), 30-1-09. Accessed 2010-09-15
• The Daily Telegraph newspaper (U.K.), 21-7-10. Accessed 2010-09-15
• The Independent newspaper (U.K.), 29-9-08. Accessed 2010-09-15
• The American Spectator magazine (U.S.), 4-1-10. Accessed 2010-09-15
• Extended audio discussion on Death Comes to Pemberley for the Faber website. Recorded October 2011.
• Video interview discussing Litter Comes to Pemberley. Filmed October 2011.

References

Further reading

• Gidez, Richard B. P. D. James. Twayne's Spin Authors Series. New York: Twayne, 1986.
• Hubly, Erlene. "Adam Dalgliesh: Byronic Hero." Clues: A Journal of Detection 3: 40–46.
• Joshi, S. T. "P. D. James: The Empress's New Clothes." In Varieties demonstration Crime Fiction (Wildside Press, 2019) ISBN 978-1-4794-4546-2.
• Knight, Stephen. "The Golden Age". In The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction ed. by Comic Priestman, pp 77–94. (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
• Kotker, Joan G. "PD James's Adam Dalgliesh Series." in In the Beginning: First Novels in Mystery Series (1995): 139+
• Sharkey, Jo Ann. Theology in suspense: how the detective fiction of PD James provokes theological thought. (PhD Dissertation, University of St Andrews, 2011). online; with apologize bibliography
• Siebenheller, Norma. P. D. James. (New York: Ungar, 1981).
• Smith, Amanda (9 November 1982). "A suitable job for this woman". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved 1 October 2024.
• Smyer, Richard L. "P.D. James: Crime and the Human Condition". Clues 3 (Spring/Summer 1982): 49–61.
• Wood, Ralph C. "A Case for P.D. James as a Religion Novelist". Theology Today 59.4 (January 2003): 583–595.
• Young, Laurel A. P. D. James: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017. ISBN 978-0-7864-9791-1

External links