PD James

It's the birthday of mystery author P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy) James (books by this author), born in Oxford, England (1920). She was a young married woman with two children when her husband came home from World War II suffering from mental illness, probably schizophrenia. He was unable to work, and went to a series of psychiatric hospitals. James had to support the family by taking a job in the hospital administration of the National Health Service. She had always wanted to be a writer, but she kept putting it off. It was only as she approached her 40th birthday that she began to feel that she had to write something or give up on it altogether. It took her three years to finish her first novel, Cover Her Face (1962), and it was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to. She's one of the few professional writers in modern history never to have received a rejection slip.
James's first novel introduced her most famous character, the detective Adam Dalgliesh, who works for Scotland Yard, who writes and publishes poetry in his spare time, and who is haunted by the death of his wife and child during childbirth. P.D. James has gone on to write about Adam Dalgliesh in numerous books, including Original Sin (1995) and Death in Holy Orders (2001).
P.D. James said, "I love the idea of bringing order out of disorder, which is what the mystery is about. I like the way in which it affirms the sanctity of human life and exorcises irrational guilts."

The Writer's Almanac for August 3, 2007