SOURCE: "Adam Dalgliesh: Byronic Hero," in Clues: A Journal of Detection, Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall-Winter, 1982, pp. 40-46.

In the following essay, Hubly analyzes the character of Adam Dalgliesh as a Byronic hero.

Various readers of P. D. James' novels have attempted to understand the character of her detective, Adam Dalgliesh, by discussing him in terms of classic detective fiction. Francis Wyndham, for example, writing in the London Times Literary Supplement, has placed Adam in the tradition of "the gentleman detective" as developed by Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. As such he is "a suitably romantic sleuth," attracted to women, able to carry on "stylish courtships" of them, fond of music and good literature (Jane Austen is his favorite writer), sensitive and yet ruthless enough to be able to perform his sometimes distasteful duties. Norma Siebenheller, in her book on James, discusses Adam in terms of this same tradition. Like...