P.D. James

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Lore & Background

James was born in Oxford, the daughter of Sidney Victor James, a tax inspector, and Dorothy Mary James. Her mother was committed to a mental hospital when James was in her mid-teens. She left school at sixteen to work to take care of her younger siblings, sister Monica and brother Edward, because her family did not have much money. 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. She married Ernest Connor Bantry White, an army doctor, on 8 August 1941. They had two daughters, Clare and Jane. Connor White returned from the Second World War mentally ill and was institutionalised. With her daughters mostly cared for by Connor's parents, James studied hospital administration, and from 1949 to 1968 worked for a hospital board in London. She began writing in the mid-1950s, using her maiden name. Her first novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator and poet Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, was published in 1962. 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. Two years after the publication of Cover Her Face, James's husband died on 5 August 1964. After his death, she applied for the grade of Principal in the Home Civil Service 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.

Reader's Guide

P. D. James is significant for her enduring series of detective novels featuring Adam Dalgliesh, a police commander and poet, which brought her widespread fame. Many of her 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. 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. On 7 February 1991, James was created a life peer as Baroness James of Holland Park, of Southwold in the County of Suffolk. 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. Talking About Detective Fiction was published in 2009. She said in 2011 that The Private Patient was the final Dalgliesh novel, but at the time of her death she had been planning another Dalgliesh novel, set in Southwold. In 2008, she was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame at the inaugural ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards. Her novel The Children of Men (1992) was the basis for the feature film Children of Men (2006), directed by Alfonso Cuarón. James was reportedly pleased with the adaptation and proud to be associated with the film.

Did You Know?

• James's mother was committed to a mental hospital when James was in her mid-teens.
• She worked as an assistant stage manager for the Festival Theatre in Cambridge before becoming a writer.
• Her husband, Connor White, returned from the Second World War mentally ill and was institutionalised.
• Dalgliesh's last name comes from a teacher of English at Cambridge High School; his first name is that of Miss Dalgliesh's father.
• James was one of 200 public figures who signed a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in August 2014.