Phyllis Dorothy James

Biography

Removals in removals, she knows a rather itinerant childhood. Elder of a family of three children, small Phyllis attends the religious school, then the Cambridge High School for girls . Although it is brilliant, it is forced to leave the school at sixteen years, her father considering that it is not necessary for a girl to continue front in the studies. His/her father, who works in the public service, inserts it in the service of the taxes. To twenty and one years, she marries Dr. White, who is useful in the medical community of the Royal Army, and of which she will have two girls in 1942 and 1944.

It leaves its employment to raise her children. Unfortunately, her husband returns traumatized from the the Indies, and until its death in 1964, it shares its life between the psychiatric hospitals and its house. To nourish his/her two daughters and to ensure the daily life, Phyllis must resume work. Initially employee at the hospital of Paddington, it follows the courses of the evening to climb the levels of the medical administration.

In addition, she wishes to write for a long time. Carrying out face very, it is harnessed then in the task, every morning between six and eight hours. It sends its first manuscript in 1962, signed P.D. James , the initial ones being intended to hide that the author is a woman, and this first test is a master stroke. “I still wonder how I could find time, in 1961, to write my first book, With face covered , which was fortunately a success. In spite of death, the diseases, the tragedies, I estimate that I had much chance, that the life spoiled me”, entrusts the author.

It is about a novel with rather traditional enigma, but in which P.D. James sticks already to the psychology of its character, Adam Dalgliesh, police officer of Scotland Yard - Poète at his hours, and haunted by the death of its wife died in layers at the same time as its baby - who will hold the main role in all his work, except two novels, in which Cordélia Grey, young private detective, will steal the high-speed motorboat to him.

Its determination and its intelligence give access to him a station of senior officer to the Ministry for the interior: of 1968 with 1979, it works at the legal department (service of legal medicine), then occupies the function of magistrate until in 1984 (legal section of the murder squad), which enriches its knowledge by the police and legal system. All this time, she writes and builds step by step her literary work, in which she describes with refinement the company which surrounds it.

Thanks to its success, she travels throughout the world, gives many courses and conferences on the trade of writer. It is Meurtres in white blouse which assoit definitively its reputation. Crowned new queen of the crime, it is today prize winner of the Silver Dagar Award, like, in France, of the Grand Prix of police literature in 1988.

P.D.James is baron today (it was anoblie by the queen in 1990), eminent member of the British authors and the House of Lords. It ensures itself the production of its novels, in particular in the United States, where each one of its new novels is a best-seller.

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