Crime writer PD James is the first of four cultural figures to discuss the first impressions made on them by America. They examine the initial incarnation of America in their minds and chart the way it has evolved through subsequent intellectual, physical and cultural discovery.
States of Mind
P. D. James
'I look upon North America as the only great nursery of freemen left on the face of the earth.'
Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St Asaph, 1714-88
'Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof'
Philip James Bailey, poet, 1816-1902
'The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children'.
Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, 1894-1972
From C18th clerymen to C20th monarchs via C19th poets, America has excited constant fascination from this side of the Atlantic. The idea of America is as constantly evolving as the country itself.
To coincide with the opening of a new exhibition exploring the first impressions America created on pioneering English travellers in the C16th, BBC Radio 3 invites four cultural figures to examine their first impressions of the country and how these developed into their own personal idea of America.
In the first in the series, writer P. D. James explores growing up in what many regard as the American century and examines what deeper distinctions are revealed by the differences between the English detective story and the American mystery.
States of Mind coincides with the exhibition A New World: England's First View of America
at the British Museum which runs from the 15 March - 17 June 2007.
From the exhibition A New World: England's first view of America at the British Museum.
An Indian werowance, or chief, painted for a great solemn gathering, by John White, c. 1585.
An iconic image of first contact between Europeans and Native Americans.
© The Trustees of British Museum
