Book description
The year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six
years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the nursery,
Elizabeth's beloved sister Jane and her husband Bingley live nearby
and the orderly world of Pemberley seems unassailable. But all this is
threatened when, on the eve of the annual autumn ball, the guests are
preparing to retire for the night when a chaise appears, rocking down
the path from Pemberley's wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham
- Elizabeth's younger, unreliable sister - stumbles out screaming that
her husband has been murdered. Inspired by a lifelong passion for the
work of Jane Austen, PD James masterfully recreates the world of Pride
and Prejudice, and combines it with the excitement and suspense of a
brilliantly-crafted crime story. Death Comes to Pemberley is a
distinguished work of fiction, from one of the best-loved, most- read
writers of our time.
P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High
School for Girls. From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health
Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police
Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department. All that
experience has been used in her novels. She is a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of Arts and has served as
a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was
Chairman of the Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British
Council, and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London. She is an Honorary
Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. She has won
awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia,
including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award and the
National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature (US). She has received
honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in
1983, and was created a life peer in 1991. In 1997 she was elected
President of the Society of Authors. She lives in London and Oxford and
has two daughters, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
