The literary world is mourning the passing of crime novelist P.D. James. The globally renowned author died at her Oxfordshire home on Thursday morning aged 94.

P D James
P.D. James, 1920-2014

James’ British publisher Faber & Faber made the announcement later on Thursday, stating that she died “peacefully at her home in Oxford.” They went on to pay tribute to her in the statement, saying that she was "so very remarkable in every aspect of her life, an inspiration and great friend to us all."

Born Phyllis Dorothy James on August 3rd 1920, she was the eldest of three children of Dorothy and Sidney James. She worked in the forensic science and criminal law departments of the Home Office before publishing her first novel ‘Cover Her Face’ at the age of 42. She sold millions of copies of her books around the world, with many developed into television shows and movies.

Though she is most famous for her literary creation Adam Dalgliesh, who was the protagonist of fourteen of her novels between 1962’s ‘Cover Her Face’ and 2008’s ‘The Private Patient’, she also produced a number of other works that displayed a real knack for getting the context correct for the time period she was writing about. 2011’s well-received ‘Death Comes to Pemberley’ was an imagined murder mystery follow-up to Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

In addition, James’ characters often displayed a real, complex depth that some said surpassed the classic British crime writers of the 1930s such as Agatha Christie and Margery Allingham. For example, the Scotland Yard detective Dalgliesh was brooding, introspective and morally conflicted.

In 2006, James gave an interview to the Associated Press and explained her fascination with the crime genre: "tell us more ... about the social mores about the time in which they were written than the more prestigious literature.”

Many prestigious figures from the literary world paid tribute to James on Thursday. Among them was fellow writer Ruth Rendell, who told the BBC’s ‘Front Row’ programme "She was wonderfully accurate in her police work; she really took great pains about it. She took great care and she got it right. She did not make mistakes, she saw to it that she didn't.”

In a 2013 interview with the BBC, James mentioned that she was working on another novel, which will sadly remain unfinished. Whether it will ever see a release will surely be the subject of much speculation in the near future.

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