P. D. (Phyllis Dorothy) James – Tuesday 3 August 1920 – still living as of this post

Introduction

It was on the first day (Monday 5 March 2001) of my attendance at the Bath Literature Festival that I met P. D. James. She and Frank Delaney were the two-person panel titled “Facing the Music”. They primarily discussed their different types and modes of writing. There was a book signing afterwards and, although there were copies of her various mystery/crime novels available for purchase; I opted for a different type of book and bought P. D.’s The Children of Men, a novel with a science fiction/futuristic slant to the story. P. D. James signed and dated my copy of her book.

Dedication in The Children of Men

“Again, to my daughters Clare and Jane who helped”

Excerpt from Omega of The Children of Men

“Friday 1 January 2021

Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years two months and twelve days. If the first reports are to be believed, Joseph Ricardo died as he had lived. The distinction, if one can call it that, of being the last human whose birth was officially recorded, unrelated as it was to any personal virtue or talent, had always been difficult for him to handle. And now he is dead. The news was given to us here in Britain on the nine o’clock programme of the State Radio Service and I heard it fortuitously. I had settled down to begin this diary of the last half of my life when I noticed the time and thought I might as well catch the headlines to the nine o’clock bulletin. Ricardo’s death was the last item mentioned, and then only briefly, a couple of sentences delivered without emphasis in the newscaster’s carefully non-committal voice. But it seemed to me, hearing it, that it was a small additional justification for beginning the diary today; the first day of a new year and my fiftieth birthday. As a child I had always liked that distinction, despite the inconvenience of having it follow Christmas too quickly so that one present — it never seemed notably superior to the one I would in any case have received – had to do for both celebrations.”

UPDATE - P. D. James died in Oxford, England on Thursday 27 November 2014


Yesterday’s writer – Katharine Hepburn
Tomorrow’s writer – Madeleine L’Engle

Source: James, P. D. The Children of Men. Faber and Faber, 2000. ISBN 0-574-20465-1. Excerpt: page 3

Images:
Left: Front cover of my personal copy of The Children of Men
Center: P. D. James from the website faber.co.uk
Right: Signed title page of my personal copy of The Children of Men