‘Is there a British Mystery?’: text of a talk delivered as part of a discussion evening for the Friends of the BU [Boston University] Libraries, in which P D James argues that the British mystery is firmly rooted in the mainstream of British literary tradition, more so than any other popular genre. No date, but possibly late 1980s? [she concluded her talk by reading ‘Mayhem Parva’, light verse which she ‘composed in celebration of that most English of all mysteries, the country house murder in the village of Mayhem Parva’ - this was published in 1990].