58 Holland Park Avenue, London W11 where PD James lived from 1984-2012
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE,FRSA,FRSL (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring the police commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh.[2]
James was born in Oxford, the daughter of Sidney Victor James, a tax inspector, and his wife, Dorothy Mary James.[3] She was educated at the British School[4]inLudlow and Cambridge High School for Girls.[5] Her mother was committed to a mental hospital when James was in her mid-teens.[6]
She had to leave school at the age of sixteen to work to take care of her younger siblings, sister Monica, and brother Edward, because her family did not have much money and her father did not believe in higher education for girls.[citation needed] She worked in a tax office in Ely for three years and later found a job as an assistant stage manager for 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.
White returned from the Second World War mentally ill and was institutionalised. With her daughters being mostly cared for by Connor's parents,[8] James studied hospital administration, and from 1949 to 1968 worked for a hospital board in London.[9] She began writing in the mid-1950s, using her maiden name ("My genes are James genes").[10][11]
Her first novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator and poet Adam DalglieshofNew Scotland Yard, was published in 1962.[12] Dalgliesh's last name comes from a teacher of English at Cambridge High School and his first name is that of Miss Dalgliesh's father.[13] Many of James's mystery novels take place against the backdrop of UK bureaucracies, such as the criminal justice system and the National Health Service, in which she worked for decades starting in the 1940s. Two years after the publication of Cover Her Face, James's husband died on 5 August 1964.[14] Prior to his death, James had not felt able to change her job: "He [Connor] would periodically discharge 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 new job, which would only impose additional strain. But now [after Connor's death] I felt the strong need to look for a change of direction."[15] She applied for the grade of Principal in the Home Civil Service[14] and held positions as a civil servant within several sections of the Home Office, including the criminal section. She worked in government service until her retirement in 1979.
On 7 February 1991, James was created a life peerasBaroness James of Holland Park, of Southwold in the County of Suffolk.[16] She sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative. She was 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.[17] Her later novels were often set in a community closed in some way, such as a publishing house, barristers' chambers, a theological college, an 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 revealed in 2011 that The Private Patient was the final Dalgliesh novel.[18]
As guest editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme in December 2009, James conducted an interview with the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, in which she seemed critical of some of his decisions. Regular Today presenter Evan Davis commented that "She shouldn't be guest editing; she should be permanently presenting the programme."[19] In 2008, she was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame at the inaugural ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards.[20]
James' main home was her house at 58 Holland Park Avenue, in the area from which she took her title; she also owned homes in Oxford and Southwold.
Blue plaque at 58 Holland Park Avenue
James died at her home in Oxford on 27 November 2014, aged 94.[22] She is survived by her two daughters, Clare and Jane, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.[23]
During the 1980s, many of James's mystery novels were adapted for television by Anglia Television for the ITV network in the UK. These productions have been broadcast in other countries, including the US 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 not my idea of Dalgliesh, but I would be very surprised if he were."[24] The BBC adapted Death in Holy Orders in 2003, and The Murder Room in 2004, both as 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 Channel 5 premiere on 4 November in the United Kingdom. A further six episodes started to air on Channel 5 in April 2023.
Crime Times Three (1979), later reprinted as Three Complete Novels (1988), comprising Cover Her Face, A Mind to Murder, and Shroud for a Nightingale
Murder in Triplicate (1980), later reprinted as In Murderous Company (1988), comprising Unnatural Causes, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, and The Black Tower
Omnibus (1982), comprising Unnatural Causes, Shroud for a Nightingale and An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Trilogy of Death (1984), comprising Innocent Blood, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, and The Skull Beneath the Skin
A Dalgliesh Trilogy (1989), comprising Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower, and Death of an Expert Witness
A Second Dalgliesh Trilogy (1993), comprising A Mind to Murder, A Taste for Death, and Devices and Desires
Deadly Pleasures (1996), comprising The Black Tower, Death of an Expert Witness, and The Skull Beneath the Skin
An Adam Dalgliesh Omnibus (2008), comprising A Taste for Death, Devices and Desires, and Original Sin
"Moment of Power" (1968), first published 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, ed. Virginia Whitaker (collected in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales, 2017)
"Murder, 1986" (1975), first published in Ellery Queen's Masters of Mystery
"A Very Desirable Residence" (1976), first published in Winter's Crimes 8, ed. Hilary Watson (collected in Sleep No More: Six 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, ed. George Hardinge (collected in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales, 2017)
"Memories Don't Die" (1984), first published in Redbook, July 1984
"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 in 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 as "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 Verdict of Us All, ed. Peter Lovesey. An earlier version of the story ("The Yo-Yo") written in 1996 was later published in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales in 2017.
"The Twelve Clues of Christmas" (collected in The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, 2016)
Vert, between two oak trees eradicated Or a bend sinister wavy Argent, thereon another Azure charged with a quill pen Argent, the quill Or, a chief Azure issuant thereon a representation of Southwold Lighthouse proper.
Supporters
On either side a tabby cat salient guardant Proper wearing a collar Vert, edged, buckled and studded Or, reposing the exterior paw upon an open book, the pages lettered Proper edged Or and bound Gules each upright on a set of two closed books edged Or, their spines outward, one bound Vert lying on top of the other Azure.
Webb, Richard. "St Laurence's C of E Primary School". Geograph. geograph.org.uk. Retrieved 13 November 2021. In 1972 St Laurence's C of E Primary School closed. It merged with the former British School on Old Street and Ludlow had just one primary school. This is the site of the shared sports field of the two schools.
Wallace, David (2 December 2014). "Letter: PD James, a Shropshire lass". the Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2021. We used to explore all the paths around the castle, all around the hill. Down below there was the river Teme and the water meadows. I can remember very, very clearly the school I went to, and the names of some of the children come right back to me. The British school, it was called, and the earliest poem I learned there was called Mamble.
"Remembering P.D. James". The Prayer Book Society of Canada. 6 February 2015. Retrieved 13 November 2021. Later, at a church school in Ludlow, Shropshire, she was required to learn the Collect each week.
"Desert Island Discs: P D James". BBC Radio 4. BBC. 2002. Retrieved 13 November 2021. Sue Lawley's castaway is crime writer and conservative life peer P D James.
"Desert Island Discs: P D James". BBC Radio 4. BBC. 1982. Retrieved 13 November 2021. Roy Plomley's castaway is writer P D James.
"P D James". Desert Island Discs: Archive 2000-2005. Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 13 November 2021. Phyllis attended an old-fashioned grammar school where she enjoyed English lessons
^Slade, Douglas (28 November 2014). "PD James dead: Remembering the first lady of crime". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 13 November 2021. The family moved to Ludlow, Shropshire, for her primary school years and then to Cambridge, where she went to the County High School for Girls. When she was in her mid-teens her mother was committed to a mental hospital.
Knight, Stephen. "The Golden Age". In The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction ed. by Martin 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 long bibliography
Siebenheller, Norma. P. D. James. (New York: Ungar, 1981).
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 Christian 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. ISBN978-0-7864-9791-1
