Time to Be in Earnest : A Fragment of Autobiography (First American Edition)

James, P.D.

ISBN 10: 037541066X / ISBN 13: 9780375410666

Published by Knopf, New York, 2000

About this Item

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. First American edition, first printing. Hardcover. Quarter red cloth over black paper-covered boards, with gilt spine lettering. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket has one tiny closed tear at top corner. Publisher's original price intact on jacket flap ($25.00). Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. A tight, clean copy. Octavo, 269 pages, with index. A memoir in diary form, covering the year beginning on P. D. James s seventy-seventh birthday, interwoven with reflections on her childhood, career, and writing life. P. D. James (1920 2014) was an English novelist best known for her Adam Dalgliesh detective series, often hailed as the Queen of Crime for her sophisticated psychological and procedural mysteries. This was her only full-length autobiographical work, published late in her career. I.

Seller Inventory # MYSTERY-REAR-7

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Time to Be in Earnest : A Fragment of Autobiography (First American Edition)
• Publisher: Knopf, New York
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 037541066X
• ISBN 13: 9780375410666
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

In 1997, P. D. James, the much loved and internationally acclaimed author of mysteries, turned seventy-seven. Taking to heart Dr. Johnson's advice that at seventy-seven it is "time to be in earnest," she decided to undertake a book unlike any she had written before: a personal memoir in the form of a diary. This enchanting and highly original volume is the result. Structured as the diary of a single year, it roams back and forth through time, illuminating James's extraordinary, sometimes painful and sometimes joyful life.

Here, interwoven with reflections on her writing career and the craft of crime novels, are vivid accounts of episodes in her own past — of school days in 1920s and 1930s Cambridge . . . of the war and the tragedy of her husband's madness . . . of her determined struggle to support a family alone. She tells about the birth of her second daughter in the midst of a German buzz-bomb attack; about becoming a civil servant (and laying the groundwork for her writing career by working in the criminal justice system); about her years of public service on such bodies as the Arts Council and the BBC's Board of Governors, culminating in entry to the House of Lords. Along the way, with warmth and authority, she offers views on everything from author tours to the problems of television adaptations, from book reviewing to her obsession with Jane Austen.

Written with exceptional grace, this "fragment of autobiography" has already been received with enthusiasm by British reviewers and readers. The thousands of Americans who have enjoyed P. D. James's novels will be equally charmed. Diary or memoir or both, Time to Be in Earnest is a delight.

About the Author

P. D. James is the author of fifteen books. Her most recent novel, A Certain Justice, was published in 1997. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Divisions of the Home Office, and has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 1991, she was created Baroness James of Holland Park. P. D. James lives in London and Oxford.