Phyllia Dorothy James White, known as PD James, died at the age of 94, in Oxford, England on Thursday. Her great works that are left behind will speak of her extraordinary skill in writing, whose career spanned fifty long years with 18 mystery and detective books published by Faber and Faber, not to mention the awards and recognitions bestowed upon her in her lifetime.
ABC News reported that mystery novels caught Ms. James' fancy in choosing which genre her works should belong because according to her mystery novels, "tell us more...about the social mores about the time in which they were written than the more prestigious literature." Millions of copies of her valuable works were sold around the globe and some were adapted for TV shows.
Notable among her works are the strong and firm nature of her characters, which seemed to bear a part of her attitude and intense analysis of what the society is all about. Fellow novelist, A.S. Byatt speaks of realism as one of the major qualities in James' works. Byatt is reported in ABC News as saying, "When people in her books died the other character's lives changed as they would in real life."
Ms. James claimed in an interview that the human heart is the greatest mystery, a mystery which writers are concerned about. She added that what caught her interest are the things, the circumstances and anything that makes people what they are. Her focus lies on the individual's thoughts and perceptions and from there she drew out her characters.
When the Second World War broke out and Ms. James was compelled to face the difficult situation of looking after her family's welfare, she temporarily put on hold whatever dreams she had for her writing career.
It was only in 1962, after three years of writing that she was able to publish her first novel, "Cover Her Face." A lot of great works came after the other coupled with awards and recognitions for her valuable contribution in the field of literature. "Death Comes to Pemberley" in 2011 was the last of her novels.
