Phyllis Dorothy James, (born 3 August 1920), commonly known as P. D. James, is an English crime writer and Conservative life peer in the House of Lords, most famous for a series of detective novels starring policeman and poet Adam Dalgliesh.
James was born in Oxford and educated at the British School in Ludlow and Cambridge High School for Girls. James had to leave school at age sixteen to work. James worked in a tax office for three years, and later found a job as an assistant stage manager for a theater group. In 1941, she married Ernest Connor Bantry White, an army doctor, and had two daughters, Claire and Jane. When White returned from World War II, he suffered from illness and James was forced to provide for the whole family until her husband's death in 1964.
James began writing in the mid-1950s. Her first novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator and poet Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, named after a teacher at Cambridge High School, was published in 1962. Many of James's mystery novels take place against the backdrop of the UK's bureaucracies, such as the criminal justice system and the health services arenas, in which James had worked for decades.
She is an Anglican and a Lay Patron of the Prayer Book Society. Her 2001 work, Death in Holy Orders, displays her familiarity with the inner workings of church hierarchy. Her later novels are often set in a community closed in some way, such as a publishing house or barristers' chambers, a theological college, an island or a private clinic. The Adam Dalgliesh novel, The Private Patient, was published in August 2008 and Talking About Detective Fiction was published in 2009. She revealed in 2011 that The Private Patient was the final Dalgliesh novel.
James is the author of more than twenty books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service and she has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2011 she celebrated her 91st birthday and has published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991 and was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame in 2008. She lives in London and Oxford.
James was born in Oxford and educated at the British School in Ludlow and Cambridge High School for Girls. James had to leave school at age sixteen to work. James worked in a tax office for three years, and later found a job as an assistant stage manager for a theater group. In 1941, she married Ernest Connor Bantry White, an army doctor, and had two daughters, Claire and Jane. When White returned from World War II, he suffered from illness and James was forced to provide for the whole family until her husband's death in 1964.
James began writing in the mid-1950s. Her first novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator and poet Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, named after a teacher at Cambridge High School, was published in 1962. Many of James's mystery novels take place against the backdrop of the UK's bureaucracies, such as the criminal justice system and the health services arenas, in which James had worked for decades.
She is an Anglican and a Lay Patron of the Prayer Book Society. Her 2001 work, Death in Holy Orders, displays her familiarity with the inner workings of church hierarchy. Her later novels are often set in a community closed in some way, such as a publishing house or barristers' chambers, a theological college, an island or a private clinic. The Adam Dalgliesh novel, The Private Patient, was published in August 2008 and Talking About Detective Fiction was published in 2009. She revealed in 2011 that The Private Patient was the final Dalgliesh novel.
James is the author of more than twenty books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service and she has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2011 she celebrated her 91st birthday and has published her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest. The recipient of many prizes and honors, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991 and was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame in 2008. She lives in London and Oxford.
The Works of P.D. James -
Adam Dalgliesh mysteries
- Cover Her Face (1962)
- A Mind to Murder (1963)
- Unnatural Causes (1967)
- Shroud for a Nightingale (1971)
- The Black Tower (1975)
- Death of an Expert Witness (1977)
- A Taste for Death (1986)
- Devices and Desires (1989)
- Original Sin (1994)
- A Certain Justice (1997)
- Death in Holy Orders (2001)
- The Murder Room (2003)
- The Lighthouse (2005)
- The Private Patient (2008)
- An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)
- The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982)
- Innocent Blood (1980)
- The Children of Men (1992)
- Death Comes to Pemberley (2011)
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