P. D. James, byname of Phyllis Dorothy James White, also known as The Baroness James of Holland Park, was a renowned English novelist and life peer. She was born on August 3, 1920, in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, and passed away on November 27, 2014, in Oxford. James was best known for her series of detective novels featuring her most famous character, the police commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.

Her upbringing was in the university town of Cambridge, where she was self-educated after her formal education ended at the age of 16 due to financial constraints. She married Ernest C.B. White in 1941, who unfortunately suffered mental illness due to wartime service and spent much of his life in psychiatric care. James worked to support her family by taking administrative roles in the National Health Service and later as a civil servant in the Home Office.