P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department.
All that experience was used in her novels. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of Arts and served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was Chairman of the Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London. She was an Honorary Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.
She won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award and The National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature (US). She received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991. In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors, stepping down from the post in August 2013.
'The construction of a detective story might be formulaic; the writing need not be' - P. D. James recalls the moment she discovered she was to be a published author
Published: September 2020
A small, dark treat published for the first time in book form in celebration of what would have been P.D. James' 100th birthday.
Published: August 2020
The Queen of Crime is at the peak of her powers with this Adam Dalgliesh mystery
Published: August 2020
A beautiful new edition of one of P. D. James's classic novels.
Published: April 2020
Set in her beloved East Anglia, Death in Holy Orders is the fourteenth novel in P.D. James's Adam Dalgliesh series and a thrilling work of crime fiction filled with intrigue and suspense.
Published: April 2020
Set in the world of museums and galleries in London, The Murder Room is the twelfth Adam Dalgliesh mystery and a brilliant work of detective fiction from P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men.
Published: February 2020
Set on the bleak fens of East Anglia, Death of an Expert Witness is the seventh novel in the Adam Dalgliesh series and a thrilling work of detective fiction from P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes To Pemberley and Children of Men.
Published: February 2020
Set in Cambridge, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is the first of P.D. James's novels to feature Cordelia Gray, a compulsive thriller and a chilling study of the complex motives behind cold-hearted murder.
Published: February 2020
In The Skull Beneath the Skin, the second Cordelia Gray mystery from P.D. James, Cordelia is hired to protect a beautiful but neurotic actress and soon becomes embroiled in a case as dangerous to her life as it is mysterious.
Published: December 2019
Set in the medical world of hospitals and nursing schools in London, the fourth Adam Dalgliesh mystery Shroud for a Nightingale is a thrilling work of detective fiction from P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men.
Published: December 2019
Set on the Dorset coast, The Black Tower by P.D. James is the fifth Adam Dalgliesh mystery and a thrilling work of crime fiction from the bestselling author of Death in Holy Orders, Children of Men and Death Comes to Pemberley.
Published: August 2019
P.D. James's debut novel, the first Adam Dalgliesh mystery is a thrilling work of crime fiction set in the English countryside, from the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men.
Published: August 2019
Set in London, A Mind to Murder is the second novel in the Adam Dalgliesh series and a thrilling work of crime fiction from P.D. James, the award-winning author of Death Comes To Pemberley and Children of Men.
Published: August 2019
Set on the remote Suffolk coast, the third Adam Dalgliesh mystery Unnatural Causes is a thrilling work of crime fiction from P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes To Pemberley.
Published: May 2019
Set in London, A Taste for Death is the seventh Adam Dalgliesh mystery from P.D. James, a compulsive thriller and a chilling study of the complex motives behind cold-hearted murder.
Published: May 2019
Set on the banks of the River Thames in the literary world,P.D. James's Original Sin is the ninth Adam Dalgliesh mystery and a brilliant work of crime fiction from the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley.
Published: May 2019
Innocent Blood is a stand-alone thriller and chilling mystery from P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men.
Published: March 2019
The late, great P. D. James takes us inside the mind of a murderer.
Published: November 2018
In Death Comes to Pemberley, P. D. James masterfully recreates the world of Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice, and combines it with the excitement and suspense of brilliantly-crafted crime fiction.
Published: October 2018
The acknowledged 'Queen of Crime', P. D. James, was a past master of the short story, weaving together motifs of the Golden Age of crime-writing with deep psychological insight to create gripping, suspenseful tales.
Published: June 2018
A beautiful new edition of The Private Patient, published for the first time as a Faber Paperback.
Published: April 2018
The Children of Men is P.D. James's stand-alone dystopian novel of mass infertility and chilling mystery.
Published: November 2017
Now in a festive paperback: 'Well-turned, atmospheric tales from one of crime fiction's greats.' - The Age
Published: October 2017
A second collection of short stories from P.D. James. Six further stories are published together for the first time in a beautiful hardback edition.
Published: September 2017
A beautiful new edition of one of P.D. James's most-loved works -- the ideal place to start for a reader new to P.D James's books.
Published: July 2015
Time to Be in Earnest is P. D. James's extraordinary memoir of her early life and time starting out as a novelist, as well as diaries recording her in old age.
Published: June 2015
Experience the wonder of the written word from some of the greatest writers of the modern age, with Faber Modern Classics.
Published: October 2014
TV tie-in edition of P. D. James' number one bestselling crime story, adapted for BBC.
Published: September 2014
Murders present meet murders past in this harrowing, thought-provoking mystery featuring Inspector Adam Dalgliesh.
Published: December 2010
P.D. James's only work of true crime: a historical mystery every bit as gripping as her bestselling novels.
Published: August 2010
Stunning paperback repackages celebrating the world's pre-eminent crime writer and over forty years of detective fiction.