BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA June 20, 2019 Death comes to Pemberley P. D. James

The greatest pleasure of this novel is its unforced, effortless, effective voice. James hasn’t written in florid cod-Regency whorls, the overblown language other mimics so often employ. Not infrequently, while reading Death Comes to Pemberley, one succumbs to the Contents: impression that it is [Jane] Introduction 1 Austen herself at the A Brief Author 2-3 Biography keyboard. PD James: inside 4-7 the head of a [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/books/review/death- criminal comes-to-pemberley-by-p-d-james-book-review.html] mastermind Pride and 8-9 Prejudice and Murder

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A Brief Author Biography

assistant stage manager for a experience helped to develop her Early years theater group. In 1941 she powers of observation and P. D. James was born Phyllis married Ernest Connor Bantry thought. These aided her in both Dorothy James on August 3, 1920, White, an army doctor, and had her description of police in Oxford, England, the oldest of two daughters, Claire and Jane. detective work and her portrayal of characters. three children. Her parents, When White returned from Sidney Victor, a tax official, and World War II, he suffered from a In 1968 James passed an Dorothy May (Hone) James, mental illness and was not able to examination that qualified her for moved to Cambridge, England, get a job. James was forced to a government job. She eventually where Phyllis attended the provide for the whole family until worked in the Crime Cambridge High School for Girls. her husband's death in 1964. Department (1972–79) in Phyllis liked Cambridge and even James studied hospital London. used the city as the location for administration (management), one of her books, An Unsuitable and from 1949 to 1968 she James's work served as a basis Job for a Woman. worked for a hospital board in for her novels, giving them London, England. backgrounds for both medical Phyllis had to leave school at age and police procedures (official sixteen to work. The family did Early novels ways of working). The settings of not have much money and her several of her mysteries, father did not believe in higher James was in her early forties including A Mind to education for girls. Dorothy when her first novel, Cover Her Murder (1962), Shroud for a worked in a tax office for three Face, was published in 1962. Her Nightingale (1971), and Death of years. Later she found a job as an personal and professional an Expert Witness (1977), are in

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medicine-related locations. In all James not as a crime author, but British Empire (OBE) in 1983 of these novels she is just as as a novelist. James herself says and was made a baroness in interested in examining the that she uses the detective 1991. She also served on the relationships among people as story to comment on men, governor's board of the British she is in telling a mystery story. women, and society. In an Broadcasting Company (BBC). interview published in the New She continues to have loyal fans James wrote some of her works York Times in 1986, she said that who enjoy both a good mystery in the tradition of the British she would "sacrifice … the and a well-written novel. crime storyteller as represented detective element" in her work by such authors as Dorothy L. if it would make a better novel. James died at her home in Sayers (1893–1957) and Agatha Oxford on 27 November 2014, Christie (1891–1976). These are Some critics are unhappy with aged 94. She is survived by her stories that have sometimes James's concern with the two daughters, Clare and Jane, been referred to as "polite psychology of her characters. five grandchildren and eight great mysteries." However, James also These people would rather have -grandchildren. wrote about motivations, a book that simply tells a basic explored relationships between detective story and gives the [https:// people, examined ideas about solution. www.notablebiographies.com/Ho guilt and innocence, and -Jo/James-P-D.html] Even so, the qualities questioned both the legal system condemned by one group are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ and religion. prized by another. James is well P._D._James] Experimentation with the respected and she has received mystery form many awards for her literary achievements. James's work is distinguished (special) not only for its quality Main characters of plot, setting, and character, Most of James's books involve but also for its experimentation one of two characters: Adam with the mystery form. Her first Dalgliesh, a police inspector novel, Cover Her Face (1962), is in Scotland Yard (London's similar to the stories written by police headquarters) and a Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. published poet; Sayers, but James began to and Cordelia Gray, a young experiment with new plots and private detective introduced new types of characters. She has in An Unsuitable Job for a written about questions of social Woman (1972). In addition to privilege (special rights), their own individual mysteries, politics, aesthetics (the theory of Dalgliesh and Gray appear beauty and art), and theology together in some of the books. (the study of religion). In her novel The Children of Men (1993) James today she experimented with science fiction. To date P. D. James has published fourteen books and Because James brought such new many short stories. She was ideas to the mystery story, many awarded the Order of the people have chosen to classify

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PD James: inside the head of a criminal mastermind

At 10 o'clock PD James – or Austen's Pride and Prejudice that support the family single-handedly. Baroness James of Holland Park, doubles as a murder novel. He died, aged 44, in 1964, two OBE – walks into her sitting room. years after her first novel, Cover We last met almost 20 years ago in PD James has been an Austen Her Face, was published. It must the same room and there is, along devotee all her life. She can hear have been extraordinarily hard. with the deja vu, a sense of wonder Austen's voice with her inner ear, But PD James is, one surmises, at seeing her again. At 91, she is become her echo on the the sort of person who would remarkable. She is looking page. Death Comes to Pemberley is only be made more determined marvellous in an elegant powder- a masterly pastiche. It is more by misfortune. Besides, she was blue jacket of oriental cut, offset by streamlined than her other fiction, not unused to being pitched into a narrow silk scarf decorated with involving only one murder and helping a family out. For, in a flowers. She is frailer than when one suspect, but it fills us in on sense, history was repeating itself. last we met (she has survived heart Elizabeth and Darcy and their She left school at 16 and helped failure and had a hip replaced in marriage and satisfies that bring up her younger siblings. Her 2007) but otherwise is unchanged curiosity one has as the reader of family was short of money and and in no way extinguished. She is a classic romance: did they live her father, a tax inspector, did not as kind, civil and forthright as I happily ever after? approve of higher education for remember. Her secretary, friend And what of PD James's own girls. And there was another and all-round prop, Joyce happiness? Everything about the reason too: her mother had been McLennan, has tea and biscuits admitted to a mental hospital. room and its occupant has a ready on the table. Everything is in secure, reassuring feel: the order – above all, PD James's PD James has always been a William Morris upholstery, the powerhouse. As if it were not shipshape mind. Incidentally, P and trusty fireplace, the sage green D stand for Phyllis and Dorothy. enough to be a living legend as a walls, a flourishing orchid and crime writer, she also worked It is splendid, she volunteers, to be statues – some of them religious. (until 1979) in the NHS and answering questions from readers She has a study lined with poetry, Home Office police and criminal and fellow authors. She avoids a garden busy with geraniums, but law department. She is a being insulting yet her view is the metal security bars on the Conservative life peer and has implicit: journalists are less likely to windows introduce a different been a magistrate, a BBC be armed with surprising questions. note. She prefers not to dwell on governor, on the board of the As a crime writer, surprise is PD her earlier life's difficulties. But it Arts Council, a chair of the James's forte. Her ability to keep is interesting that, asked about Booker prize, a lay patron of the readers guessing has not failed her what matters, she talks – in a Prayer Book Society. Idleness is in half a century. And it is manner of which Jane Austen alien to her. And while, in one characteristic that, towards the end would have approved – about the sense, she could be seen as a of her writing life, she should elect importance of security and a good distinguished, conservative, C of E to spring a new surprise on us. It marriage when, for a while, she pillar of the community, there is would have been pardonable – had neither. another in which she cannot be admirable indeed – to have She was married to Connor defined through any institution. published another novel starring Bantry White, an army doctor, That is not to say she is not policeman poet Adam Dalgliesh. and had two daughters by him: intrigued by institutions – they are But Death Comes to Pemberley (now an essential part of her writing (a Clare and Jane. Tragically, her out in paperback) is a plucky new husband returned from the war theological college, a publishing adventure, a sequel to Jane mentally ill – and she had to house, a barristers' chambers, the

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criminal justice system – each has As we sit side by side on the painting: you know, don't touch it a novel to itself). But PD James is, sofa, she is completely engaged: again. above all, an independent thinker. warm, careful and deliberate. She speaks as if she were Paula Byrne With which On New Year's Eve 2009, she dictating to a secretary. She character in Jane Austen do you attracted widespread attention by turns each answer over, identify yourself? giving that independent thought sometimes returning to it for PDJ It has to be Elizabeth air time. It was while guest editing tailoring – to add an extra twist Bennet. I share her humour and the Todayprogramme that she or subtract where necessary – irony and interest in other people took on the BBC's director but always determined to do and her wish to be well married. I general, Mark Thompson, and each question justice. have a similar enthusiasm for the politely asked him bullseye security that is offered by family. questions. She wanted to know Ask PD James: readers' Because we are always aware why the BBC's middle questions in Pride and Prejudice that although management were paid such Jeffrey Archer Are you a lark Mrs Bennet is, in many ways, a overblown salaries and why or an owl? dreadful mum and embarrasses creative people were not better her elder daughters to a terrible recompensed. Thompson was not PD James I am a lark, we get extent, she is absolutely right that ready for her. The interview won up early in the morning, don't if Mr Bennet were to have got the 2010 Nick Clarke award. we? I always have woken terribly pneumonia – which they often early. Usually about 5am. I can – PD James has a special place in did, the elderly – and if he had and do – work as early as that her readers' lives. When I explain died of it in the winter or had but then I sleep for an hour in to a friend we cannot meet fallen off his horse, the Bennets the afternoon. I am a siesta because I am interviewing her, his would have been thrown out of woman. I suppose you could say response is: "Excuses don't come their house by the Collinses and that, although I am a lark, I go any better." And I feel hugely would have had to live in a back to the nest again in the indebted to her because it was the cottage on the estate. Mrs afternoon. Dalgliesh novels that saw Bennet was absolutely right about security. I think I should also me through the sleepless months JA How many rewrites do you want the security of a prosperous after my first son was born. That do? magnificent narrative grip, the marriage. Victorian and the visceral PDJ This is quite easy to Nicci French Do crime novels together: the capaciousness answer: with some passages, always have a moral impulse? coupled with violent detail… her absolutely none, whereas with books were powerful enough to others, I may have to rewrite a PDJ No, not the most violent keep even a shattered new considerable number of times and sadistic of the crime novels mother reading. I had such an before I am satisfied. I know but detective stories do affirm appetite for PD James's novels at when a thing is not as good as I the sanctity of each individual life that time that I did not want can make it. That is the point. and the possibility of human to read anyone else. I am still Other people might be able to justice. grateful now. do it better but I have to make it the best I can do. And I NF Do you believe in good and I think I am ready for her. She sometimes feel it is not as good evil in a Manichean way or do watches with concern as I turn on as I can make it. But when it is you see human nature as much the tape recorder, explaining that right you know. It is like with a more murky and ambiguous? she and machines do not get on.

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PDJ I believe in good and evil in a PDJ Perhaps they can seldom be Kate Kellaway Is it really true, Manichean way. Evil is a positive "great" literature but they deserve as I have read somewhere, that force… to me, this seems close to to be called literature sometimes. your first editor at Faber said he human experience. And sometimes good literature. would try and get WH Auden to write a few poems for Dalgliesh NF Are you scared of dying and Jo Mercer You published your for you to slip into your novels? does that inform your writing? first Dalgliesh in 1962. How has murder changed in half a century? PDJ Yes, though whether Auden PDJ No, I am not afraid of death would have done it is another but I do fear the process of dying if PDJ I doubt whether murder has matter. It was Charles Monteith it means prolonged pain, indignity changed – although the detective who said: "We'll get Wystan to and lack of independence. I make a novel certainly has. But the write some poetry for Dalgliesh." strong distinction between death common motives of greed, and dying. At over 90, I fear jealousy, anger and hatred have Heather87 I am a budding crime prolonged pain. And as to whether stayed the same. writer. What would your main it informs my writing – it probably tips for me be? does but not in a way I am Mark Johnson Have you ever conscious of. switched your killer halfway PDJ Increase your word power. through a novel? Increase your vocabulary. Words Mike Stotter Despite your love are our raw materials. Practise of Jane Austen's work, you chose PDJ No – I plot and plan with writing. Read widely, particularly to write in the crime genre. What great care. of the best writing. Learn to try drew you to the detective story? and understand and sympathise Mary Wilkinson What is your hit rate for spotting the killer in with other people. Go through PDJ I enjoyed reading them from life always open to experience. childhood. I thought I could write the works of other writers? Do you think you might be better Nothing that happens to a writer, one successfully and that it would good or ill, is ever lost. stand a good chance of publication. than the ordinary reader at I love structure in novels and am literary detection? Hertfordbridge Was Dorothy L fascinated by communities of PDJ As I have been reading crime Sayers an influence on you? people: a publishing house, a novels – mostly detective stories nuclear power station, a theological PDJ Yes, I would say that she – for 80 years, I can spot most of was. She showed me that crime college. I like studying community the tricks – particularly those of life. fiction and good writing are Agatha Christie. I am also quite compatible. Although she is, of Ormskirkgirl Why do you think likely to hit upon the killer in course, very much of her time and there is a sudden appetite for more modern novels. But spotting there was a sort of snobbishness Nordic crime? And are you a fan? the murderer is probably less that went with those days. important in modern detective PDJ The stories are strong, the stories. The pure puzzle – as with Gwyneth Boswell Do you feel characters believable and the TV Agatha Christie – although that the BBC has become any less series are excellent. And there is a ingenious, is probably less like the unwieldy ship you particular attraction to a crime important today than the described when you interviewed novel set in a different country. examination of motive, the its DG, Mark Thompson? interest of setting and distinction O Do you think great thrillers can of writing. The detective novel has PDJ I should say that both the also qualify as great literature? moved closer to mainline fiction. chairman of the Trust and the

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director general are determined useful in plot making. People can Peter Lant What is the best on reform but that, largely due to be concealed by darkness and thing about being a nonagenarian? the financial crisis, the waters there is a certain melancholy in PDJ [There is a prolonged ahead are bound to be stormy. I the dying of the year. silence during which she admits should probably also say I am a Pirkko Mahlamaki What are that her silence might serve as an strong supporter of the BBC. your views on the right to die answer in itself.] Oh dear, what Quelquechose Are you the with dignity? can one say for it? One has learnt "buxom grandmother" who writes what is important and what is PDJ I think a person whose life, detective fiction in A Taste for unimportant. At least, I hope I perhaps through appalling pain, Death? have learned the difference. I has become intolerable has the agree with Keats that the most PDJ Now that I am a great right to end it. But I am less important thing in life is the grandmother, I am less buxom – assured of the right of other "holiness of the heart's or buxom in the wrong places people to indulge in mercy affections". [laughs]. This seems inseparable killing. I think murder has to from old age. Everything falls remain the unique crime. And Kate Kellaway Do you feel down. I am like the Queen – the many old people would feel that lucky in the life you have had? same shape all the way down. You they ought to end their life PDJ I feel incredibly fortunate know what I mean. Your bosom perhaps to benefit their children, and blessed, for which I nightly goes and your bottom goes. if the practice were to become commonplace and other elderly give thanks. I have worked hard Q For all the influence of Jane people were doing it. and tried to do my best but many Austen on your work, there is a other people do that without the clear stylistic divergence between Jeanette Winterson What do good fortune that I have enjoyed. you when it comes to descriptive you love best? [https://www.theguardian.com/ density. Did that bother you while PDJ Some people – including books/2012/jul/15/pd-james- writing Death Comes to members of my family. The author-interview-readers] Pemberley? security of my home. The PDJ We don't get detailed English spring. Walking by the descriptions of the countryside or sea in Suffolk. [she has a house houses in Jane Austen as we do in in Southwold]. And the solace of my work but because I was trying reading. to write in her style in Death Comes to Pemberley, I had to exercise some discipline.

Grazina McCarthy Why is it that most of your stories start in autumn? Do you think the season lends the right atmosphere for murder?

PDJ Yes, I agree. Aautumn lends itself to the detective story through the dying light, which is

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Pride and Prejudice and Murder

Aspiring writers take heart: one of This has been an excellent year rock band called Slurry and team the most beloved novels of all time for Austen buffs, marking the up for a summer tour with Long was rejected when it was fluttered 200th anniversary of her first Borne Suffering, a girl group in front of publishers in 1797 — or appearance in print, with the headed by Lizzy and Jane); so the historical record suggests. anonymously published novel Definitely Not Mr. Darcy (a Called First Impressions, it was Sense and Sensibility. Austen had divorced single mother auditions written by a country girl whose begun writing that book years for an Austen-inspired TV show); father was so impressed by his earlier, and its success meant that A Weekend With Mr. Darcy (an daughter’s sage and vivacious publication of three other works Austen-obsessed professor travels creation that he sent a letter of followed quickly. But so, to a conference in the English inquiry to a publisher, who refused unfortunately, did her death, in countryside and meets a man); even to look at the manuscript. 1817, at the age of 41. Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts Never mind. Sixteen years later, Nonetheless, her fame has lived (did Darcy need help in the the book appeared under a on, magnified in recent decades by “manhood” department?); and the different title. Perhaps you’ve heard films and Web sites inspired by smart-enough but skippable of it: Pride and Prejudice. her novels. Indeed, the current “original” story collection Jane Austen vogue has led to a near Austen Made Me Do It. Reading the Here’s a quick recap. A proud, epidemic of imitation, so much so productions of this motley crew clever girl named Elizabeth Bennet that HarperCollins recently of Regency-sparked Frankensteins, — who has four sisters; a silly, announced it would enlist six one remembers the reflection of social-climbing mother; a smart but popular authors to invent Lizzy Bennet’s sardonic father: passive father; and no family contemporary versions of her “For what do we live, but to make fortune to speak of — is pursued, oeuvre. First up is Joanna sport for our neighbors, and laugh reluctantly, by a dashing, arrogant Trollope, with Sense and Sensibility. at them in our turn?” wealthy man named Fitzwilliam Darcy, who loves her but considers That’s quite an audacious For that reason, it’s surprisingly her beneath him. “Could you undertaking. So far, the most gratifying, while turning the pages expect me to rejoice in the successful modern reincarnation of P. D. James’s homage, to find inferiority of your connections?” he of Austen was Amy Heckerling’s oneself laughing not at the rudely asks, grudgingly confessing 1995 movie “Clueless,” a glossy characters but with them. his love and demanding her hand in overhaul of Emma that clad the Baroness James, 91, a retired marriage. He’s stunned when she ageless bones of Austen’s plot in British civil servant, former refuses him. Eventually, Lizzy glossy Hollywood flesh and magistrate, BBC governor and teaches him more “gentlemanlike” fashion. Meanwhile, the most author of 20 previous books manners and they marry in a grotesque reanimation has surely (many featuring the poet detective double wedding with Darcy’s friend been the 2009 para-literary niche Adam Dalgliesh) is far too wise to Bingley and Lizzy’s sister Jane, phenomenon Pride and Prejudice overstep her authorial license. whom Darcy had initially striven to and Zombies. Her innovation has been to keep asunder. How did the transplant the dramatis personae marriages work out? Almost 200 But this bicentennial year has from Austen into her own years later, we have an answer in produced a veritable zombie army suspenseful universe, preserving the form of a satisfying sequel of wannabe •Janeites. The last six their likenesses and life force. called Death Comes to Pemberley, a months have seen the emergence James clearly understands that mystery by the ingenious P. D. of such Pride and Prejudice tributes many readers feel as close an James. as Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star (in attachment to Austen’s characters which Darcy and Bingley play in a

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as they do to their own relatives sister Lydia, who gate-crashes other mimics so often employ. and friends. So she cannily begins the estate in a careering coach Not infrequently, while reading by furnishing answers to the on the eve of the Darcys’ annual Death Comes to Pemberley, one natural question: “Where are they autumn ball, having left a body succumbs to the impression that now?” or two behind in the Pemberley it is Austen herself at the woodland? “A murder in the keyboard. When Lizzy observes How right it feels to learn, as family can provide a frisson of her girlhood friend Charlotte James informs us, that Bingley and excitement at fashionable dinner Lucas deftly wrangling her Jane moved away from parties,” James’s omniscient pompous, tedious husband, Mr. Netherfield soon after their narrator hopefully remarks, then Collins (whose hand Lizzy had marriage, wanting to put distance quickly changes course, spurned), her admiration for between them and the ever- concluding, in a perfect Charlotte’s artfulness could querulous Mrs. Bennet at Austenlike summation, “But little scarcely be improved upon by the Longbourn. What a delight to social credit can be expected woman who dreamed these read that tone-deaf, humorless from the brutal dispatch of an characters up: “She consistently Mary Bennet has married a “thin, undistinguished captain of the congratulated him on qualities he melancholy” rector, “given to infantry, without money or did not possess in the hope that, preaching sermons of inordinate breeding to render him flattered by her praise and length and complicated theology.” interesting.” approval, he would acquire How apt that the evil seducer them.” George Wickham, after marrying Lizzy’s father, who comes to Lizzy’s frivolous sister Lydia, offer moral support to his Note to HarperCollins: If you’re worked as a secretary for the daughter and son-in-law, still hunting an ideal foppish baronet Sir Walter Elliot assesses the contretemps with contemporary ghost writer for (a character from Austen’s novel characteristic levity: “Lydia’s Austen’s mock-Gothic mystery, Persuasion) until Lydia’s “open husband seems to have Northanger Abbey, look no flirtation” with the baronet and distinguished himself by this further. Wickham’s simpering attempts to latest exploit in managing to [https:// ingratiate himself with his combine entertainment for the www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/ employer’s daughter met “finally masses with the maximum books/review/death-comes-to- with disgust.” And what a treat to embarrassment for his family.” pemberley-by-p-d-james-book- see Bingley’s snobbish sisters, Mrs. But can these dark doings in review.html] Hurst and Miss Bingley, get their Derbyshire be resolved without comeuppance — and Harriet blotting Pemberley’s escutcheon Smith (of Emma) her reward. and blighting the Darcys’ marital felicity? Soon enough, coroners, Above all, James will delight magistrates, witnesses, peers Austen’s devoted fans by showing and plebeians will all make their Darcy and Lizzy to be (if anything) way to London . . . and tell it to more in love and better matched the judge. than anyone might have hoped, six years into their marriage. But can The greatest pleasure of this their union withstand the stress of novel is its unforced, effortless, a murder on the grounds of effective voice. James hasn’t Pemberley, occasioned by the written in florid cod-•Regency unwelcome appearance of Lizzy’s whorls, the overblown language

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