Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE, FRSA, FRSL (born 3 August 1920) is an English crime writer, under the name P. D. James, as well as a life peer in the House of Lords.
James began writing in the mid-1950s. Her first novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator and poet Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, was published in 1962. She has said that her influences include Jane Austen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh.
Many of James's mystery novels take place against the backdrop of the UK's vast bureaucracies such as the criminal justice system and the health services, arenas in which James honed her skills for decades starting in the 1940s when she went to work in hospital administration to help support her ailing husband and two children. 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 Department of Home Affairs. James worked in government service until her retirement in 1979, and her experience within these bureaucracies add a complex stratum of insider's knowledge to her writing. Her 2001 work, Death in Holy Orders, displays a grasp of the inner workings of church hierarchy: she is an Anglican. Her new Adam Dalgliesh novel, The Private Patient, was published in August 2008 in the U.K. by Faber & Faber and will be published in November 2008 in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf.
Adam Dalgliesh series:
Cordelia Gray series:
Other works include:
P. D. James has also written a successful mainstream novel entitled Innocent Blood (1980) and the dystopian science fiction novel The Children of Men (1992).
Her autobiography, Time to Be in Earnest, was published in 2000.
Omnibus editions
Most of James' mystery novels have been turned into television mini-series broadcast in the United Kingdom initially on the ITV network and, more recently, on the BBC and on PBS in the United States. Her 1992 novel The Children of Men served as the inspiration for Children of Men, a feature film released in 2006, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. Despite substantial changes from the book, James was purportedly pleased with the adaptation and proud to be associated with the film.
The following are currently available on DVD:
In January 2007 she opened the University of Portsmouth's library extension – the Frewen library, which was delayed several times in late 2006.
