P. D. James - Wikipedia P. D. James From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   (Redirected from P.D. James) Jump to navigation Jump to search English crime writer The Right Honourable The Baroness James of Holland Park OBE FRSA FRSL James in 2013 Born Phyllis Dorothy James (1920-08-03)3 August 1920 Oxford, England Died 27 November 2014(2014-11-27) (aged 94) Oxford, England Occupation Novelist Genre Crime fiction thriller dystopian fiction Spouse Ernest Connor Bantry White, an Army doctor (m. 1941–64, his death) Children 2 daughters, Clare (b. 1942) and Jane (b. 1944) PD James's voice from the BBC programme Front Row, 3 June 2013.[1] 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 crime writer. She rose to fame for her series of detective novels featuring police commander and poet Adam Dalgliesh.[2] Contents 1 Life and career 2 Film and television 3 Books 3.1 Novels 3.2 Non-fiction 4 TV and film adaptations 4.1 Adam Dalgliesh series 4.2 Other adaptations 5 Selected awards and honours 5.1 Honours 5.2 Awards 6 Interviews 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links Life and career[edit] James was born in Oxford, the daughter of Sidney James, a tax inspector, and educated at the British School in Ludlow and Cambridge High School for Girls.[3] She had to leave school at the age of sixteen to work 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 for three years and later found a job as an assistant stage manager for a theatre group. In 1941, she married Ernest Connor Bantry White, an army doctor. They had two daughters, Clare and Jane. White returned from the Second World War mentally ill and institutionalised. James and her parents provided for the whole family until her husband's death in 1964. With her daughters being mostly cared for by her parents, James studied hospital administration and from 1949 to 1968 worked for a hospital board in London.[4] She began writing in the mid-1950s, using her maiden name ("My genes are James genes").[5][6] 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.[7] 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, and she took a position as a civil servant within the criminal section of the Home Office. She worked in government service until her retirement in 1979. On 7 February 1991, James was created a life peer as Baroness James of Holland Park, of Southwold in the County of Suffolk.[8] 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.[9] Her later novels were 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. 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.[10] 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."[11] In 2008, she was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame at the inaugural ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards.[12] In August 2014, James was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[13] James' main home was her house on Holland Park Avenue, the area from which she took her title: she also owned homes in Oxford, and Southwold. James died at her home in Oxford on 27 November 2014, aged 94.[14] She is survived by her two daughters, Clare and Jane, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.[15] Film and television[edit] 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. They featured Roy Marsden as 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."[16] 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. 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 Moore and Michael Caine.[17] Despite substantial changes from the book, James was reportedly pleased with the adaptation and proud to be associated with the film.[18] Books[edit] Novels[edit] 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) Cordelia Gray mysteries An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972) The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982) Miscellaneous novels Innocent Blood (1980) The Children of Men (1992) Death Comes to Pemberley (2011) Short stories "Moment of Power" (1969), first published in Ellery Queen's Murder Menu (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 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) Omnibus editions 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 An Adam Dalgliesh Omnibus (2008), comprising A Taste for Death, Devices and Desires, and Original Sin Non-fiction[edit] The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, 1811 (1971), with Thomas A. Critchley Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography Faber & Faber, London 1999 ISBN 0-571-20396-5 Talking About Detective Fiction (2009) TV and film adaptations[edit] Adam Dalgliesh series[edit] Death of an Expert Witness (1983) Shroud for a Nightingale (1984) Cover Her Face (1985) The Black Tower (1985) A Taste For Death (1988) Devices and Desires (1991) Unnatural Causes (1993) A Mind to Murder (1995) Original Sin (1997) A Certain Justice (1998) Death in Holy Orders (2003) The Murder Room (2004) Other adaptations[edit] An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1982, 1997–1998, 1999-2001) Children of Men (feature film)[17] (2006) Death Comes to Pemberley (2011) Selected awards and honours[edit] Honours[edit] Officer of the Order of the British Empire, 1983[19] Associate Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, 1986[20] Life peerage, Baroness James of Holland Park, of Southwold in the County of Suffolk, 7 February 1991[8] Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature[21] Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts[21] President of the Society of Authors 1997–2013[22] Honorary doctorates University of Buckingham, 1992[23] University of Hertfordshire, 1994[23] University of Glasgow, 1995[23] University of Essex, 1996[23] University of Durham, 1998[23] University of Portsmouth, 1999[23] University of London, 1993[23] Honorary fellowships St Hilda's College, Oxford, 1996[23] Girton College, Cambridge, 2000[23] Downing College, Cambridge, 2000[24] Kellogg College, Oxford[25] Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, 2012 Awards[edit] 1971 Best Novel Award, Mystery Writers of America (runner-up): Shroud for a Nightingale 1972 Crime Writers' Association (CWA) Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction: Shroud for a Nightingale[26] 1973 Best Novel Award, Mystery Writers of America (runner-up): An Unsuitable Job for a Woman[23] 1976 CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction: The Black Tower[27] 1986 Mystery Writers of America Best Novel Award (runner-up): A Taste for Death[23] 1987 CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction: A Taste for Death[28] 1987 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger (lifetime achievement award)[29] 1992 Deo Gloria Award: The Children of Men[30] 1992 The Best Translated Crime Fiction of the Year in Japan, Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! 1992: Devices and Desires 1999 Grandmaster Award, Mystery Writers of America[23] 2002 WH Smith Literary Award (shortlist): Death in Holy Orders[23] 2005 British Book Awards Crime Thriller of the Year (shortlist): The Murder Room[23] 2010 Best Critical Nonfiction Anthony Award for Talking About Detective Fiction[23] 2010 Nick Clarke Award for interview with Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson whilst guest editor of Today radio programme.[31] Coat of arms of P. D. James Escutcheon 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. Motto Gratus Erga Deum Beatitudine Vitae [32] Interviews[edit] Shusha Guppy (Summer 1995). "P. D. James, The Art of Fiction No. 141". The Paris Review. The Guardian', 4-3-01. Accessed 2010-09-15 The Sunday Herald newspaper (U.K.), 13-9-08[permanent dead link]. Accessed 2010-09-15 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 Death Comes to Pemberley. Filmed October 2011. References[edit] ^ "PD James". Front Row. 3 June 2013. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014. ^ "Alphabetical List of Members", House of Lords, UK: Parliament. ^ "Faber & Faber: P. D. James". Faber.co.uk. 22 September 2008. Retrieved 20 May 2010. ^ Emma Brockes, The Guardian profile: P D James – "Murder She Wrote", 3 March 2001. Accessed 20 January 2013 ^ "P.D. James: About the Author P.D. James". randomhouse.com. ^ Enright, Michael (30 December 2018) [2014]. The Sunday Edition - December 30, 2018 (Radio interview). CBC. Event occurs at 26:30. ^ Reese, Jennifer (26 February 1998). "The Salon Interview – P.D. James – The Art of Murder". Salon. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. ^ a b "No. 52448". The London Gazette. 13 February 1991. p. 2255. ^ "Why I am still an Anglican", Continuum, 2006, p. 16. ^ Sarah Crown. "A life in writing: PD James". the Guardian. ^ John Plunkett. "BBC director general Mark Thompson thrown by PD James's detective work". the Guardian. ^ Allen, Katie (6 October 2008). "Rankin and P D James pick up ITV3 awards". theBookseller.com. Archived from the original on 9 April 2009. Retrieved 6 October 2008. ^ "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories | Politics". theguardian.com. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014. ^ "PD James, crime novelist, dies aged 94". BBC News. 27 November 2014. Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ Reynolds, Stanley (27 November 2014). "PD James obituary". Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ "P.D. James with Bill Link". Writers Bloc. 3 May 2001. Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ a b Children of Men at IMDB ^ "P. D. James Pleased With Film Version of Children of Men". internetwritingjournal.com. 8 January 2007. Retrieved 20 May 2008. ^ "No. 49375". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 1983. p. 10. ^ "P D James on Desert Island Discs". BBC. 27 October 2002. ^ a b Reynolds, Stanley (27 November 2014). "PD James obituary". The Guardian. London. ^ Flood, Alison (25 March 2013). "Philip Pullman to be Society of Authors' new president". The Guardian. London. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Baroness James of Holland Park P. D. James". British Council. Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ Stafford, Sandra (2008), "The puzzle beneath the prize", The Downing College Magazine, 19: 4–6 ^ British Council. "Baroness James of Holland Park P. D. James - British Council Literature". contemporarywriters.com. ^ "The Dagger Awards Winners Archive – 1972". Crime Writers' Association. Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ "The Dagger Awards Winners Archive – 1976". Crime Writers' Association. Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ "The Dagger Awards Winners Archive – 1987". Crime Writers' Association. Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ "The Cartier Diamond Dagger". Crime Writers' Association. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ "Deo Gloria Book Awards". Dio Gloria Trust. Retrieved 27 November 2014. ^ "PD James wins BBC's Nick Clarke Award for journalism". New Statesman. UK. 12 October 2010. ^ Debrett's Peerage. 2000. Further reading[edit] Gidez, Richard B. P. D. James. Twayne's English 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 of 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 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. ISBN 978-0-7864-9791-1 External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to P. D. James. Wikiquote has quotations related to: P. D. James The British Council's Contemporary Writers. Accessed 2016-08-03 Faber and Faber (U.K.), publisher. Accessed 2010-09-15 Random House (U.S.), publisher. Accessed 2010-09-15 Penguin Books (U.K.), publisher. Accessed 2010-09-15 P. D. James on IMDb "P.D. James (Baroness James of Holland Park OBE JP)", Fellows Remembered, The Royal Society of Literature. v t e Works by P. D. James Adam Dalgliesh series Cover Her Face A Mind to Murder Unnatural Causes Shroud for a Nightingale The Black Tower Death of an Expert Witness A Taste for Death Devices and Desires Original Sin A Certain Justice Death in Holy Orders The Murder Room The Lighthouse The Private Patient Cordelia Gray series An Unsuitable Job for a Woman The Skull Beneath the Skin Other novels Innocent Blood The Children of Men Death Comes to Pemberley Non-fiction The Maul and the Pear Tree Authority control BIBSYS: 90057968 BNE: XX1022455 BNF: cb12012557g (data) CANTIC: a10106054 CiNii: DA03926384 GND: 120404389 ICCU: IT\ICCU\CFIV\009492 ISNI: 0000 0003 6863 0220 LCCN: n80001163 LNB: 000000658 NDL: 00444500 NKC: jn19981001535 NLA: 35164930 NLI: 000070437 NLK: KAC199634557 NLP: A29672818 NSK: 000173949 NTA: 068587643 PLWABN: 9810602060905606 RERO: 02-A003418923 SELIBR: 64223 SNAC: w6000bm1 SUDOC: 028251245 Trove: 848324 UKPARL: wZp6BXsr VIAF: 101752435 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n80001163 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=P._D._James&oldid=1000626233" Categories: 1920 births 2014 deaths Anglo-Catholic writers Anthony Award winners BBC Governors British mystery writers Cartier Diamond Dagger winners Conservative Party (UK) life peers Edgar Award winners English Anglo-Catholics English crime fiction writers English women novelists Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Female life peers Literary peers Macavity Award winners Members of the Detection Club Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Oxford People from Southwold Women mystery writers Women science fiction and fantasy writers 20th-century English novelists Pseudonymous writers Pseudonymous women writers 20th-century English women writers Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts Hidden categories: Pages containing London Gazette template with parameter supp set to y Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use British English from November 2013 Articles with hAudio microformats All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from September 2015 All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from January 2018 Articles with permanently dead external links Commons category link from Wikidata Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ICCU identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with LNB identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLP identifiers Wikipedia articles with NSK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with RERO identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with UKPARL identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers AC with 26 elements Use dmy dates from November 2013 Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Languages Afrikaans Anarâškielâ العربية Aragonés Azərbaycanca تۆرکجه Català Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Eesti Español Euskara فارسی Français Galego 한국어 Հայերեն Italiano עברית Kapampangan മലയാളം مصرى Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Polski Português Română Русский Simple English Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 15 January 2021, at 23:39 (UTC). 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