P.D James

Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, is an English crime writer most commonly associated with the character Adam Dalgliesh, the protagonist of her successful detective series for which she was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame at the inaugural ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in 2008.

Born in Oxford in 1920, the daughter of an old-fashioned tax inspector who didn’t believe in higher education for girls, Phyllis had no choice but to leave school at the age of sixteen and go to work in a tax office.

In 1941 she married Ernest Connor Bantry White, an army doctor. Unfortunately, when White returned from World War II, he suffered from a mental illness and James was left with the hefty task of providing for him and their two daughters.

She decided to study hospital administration, a job she carried out and brought over the family bread with from 1949 until 1968, but in the meantime, Phyllis started writing.

Her first novel, Cover Her Face was published in 1962, after which her husband died. James then took a job as a civil servant within the criminal section of the Home Office where she worked until 1979, when she retired. Both her experience in criminal justice and the health sector were crucial in the setting of her many mystery novels.

In 2011, at the astonishing age of 91, Phyllis published her latest novel Death Comes to Pemberley whereby she combined her two lifelong enthusiasms; crime novels and Jane Austen.

Throughout her life Phyllis has also written many essays and short stories for periodicals and anthologies.

VIDEO: P D James divulges details of her latest novel that transports the world of Pride and Prejudice into a crime thriller