Dorothy Gilman

Dorothy Gilman
Born	Dorothy Edith Gilman (1923-06-25)June 25, 1923 New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	February 2, 2012(2012-02-02) (aged 88) Rye Brook, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Notable work(s)	The Mrs. Pollifax series

Dorothy Edith Gilman (June 25, 1923 – February 2, 2012) was an American espionage and mystery fiction writer. She was best known for the Mrs. Pollifax series. Emily Pollifax, her heroine, became a spy in her 60s and is very likely the only spy in literature to belong simultaneously to the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) and the local garden club.

Biography

Dorothy Gilman was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to minister James Bruce and Essa (Starkweather) Gilman. She married teacher Edgar A. Butters, Jr. September 15, 1945; they divorced in 1965. The couple had two children, Christopher and Jonathan. She attended Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 1940–1945 and the University of Pennsylvania 1963–1964. Gilman was a Unitarian Universalist.^{[citation needed]}

In 2010 Gilman was awarded the annual Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

Gilman died of Alzheimer's disease in 2012, aged 88.

Works

• Enchanted Caravan (1949) (ASIN: B0006ary4y)
• Carnival Gypsy (1950) (ASIN: B000jkb0oq)
• Ragamuffin Alley (1951) (ASIN: B0006astpm)
• The Calico Year (1953) (ASIN: B000gabx14)
• Four Party Line (1954) (ASIN: B001k36208)
• Papa Dolphin’s Table (1955) (ASIN: B000moc1qk)
• Girl in Buckskin (1956) (ISBN 978-0449703809)
• Heartbreak Street (1958) (ASIN: B00209ktic)
• Witch’s Silver (1959) (ASIN: B0006avz6m)
• Masquerade (1961) (ASIN: B0006ax1im)
• Heart’s Design (Masquerade Republished) (1963) (ASIN: B000ts8al4)
• Ten Leagues to Boston Town (1963) (ASIN: B0006ay2v2)
• The Bells of Freedom (1963) (ASIN: B001u11ad4)
• Uncertain Voyage (1967) (ISBN 978-0449216286)
• Clairvoyant Countess (1975) (ISBN 978-0449213186)
• A Nun in the Closet (1975) (ISBN 978-0449211670)
• A New Kind of Country (1978) (reissued by Fawcett in 1989) (ISBN 978-0449216279)
• The Tightrope Walker (1979) (ISBN 978-0449211779)
• The Maze in the Heart of the Castle (1983) (ISBN 978-0449703984)
• Incident at Badamya (1989) (ISBN 978-0449217214)
• Caravan (1992) (ISBN 978-0345492371)
• Thale's Folly (1999) (ISBN 978-0449003657)
• Kaleidoscope (2002) (ISBN 978-03454482170)

The Mrs. Pollifax series

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax(1966) was the first in what would be a 14-book series. The heroine, the eccentric Emily Pollifax, is a 60-ish bored garden-clubbing grandmother and widow who became a part-time CIA agent. The series, which ended in 2000 with Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled, consists of fast-paced escapades filled with danger and intrigue in Mexico, Turkey, Thailand, China, Morocco, Africa, Sicily, and elsewhere The character was adapted in the 1971 film Mrs. Pollifax-Spy.

• The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1966) (ISBN 978-0449208281)
• The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (1970) (ISBN 978-0449209127)
• The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (1971) (ISBN 978-0449215234)
• A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax (1973) (ISBN 978-0449208649)
• Mrs. Pollifax on Safari (1977) (ISBN 978-0449215241)
• Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (1983) (ISBN 978-0449208403)
• Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha (1985) (ISBN 978-0449209837)
• Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle (1988) (ISBN 978-0449215159)
• Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish (1990) (ISBN 978-0449147603)
• Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief (1993) (ISBN 978-0449149058)
• Mrs. Pollifax Pursued (1995) (ISBN 978-0449149560)
• Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer (1996) (ISBN 978-0449150047)
• Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist (1997) (ISBN 978-0449183366)
• Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled (2000) (ISBN 978-0449006702)

Other

• (Contributor) On Creative Writing 1964
• A New Kind of Country (nonfiction), 1978
• Contributor to Good Housekeeping, Jack and Jill, Redbook, Ladies' Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, The Writer, and other magazines; contributor of short stories, under name Dorothy Gilman Butters, to Redbook.

Film/TV adaptations

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax was filmed by United Artists in 1970 as Mrs. Pollifax-Spy starring Rosalind Russell.

Angela Lansbury starred in the made-for-TV movie The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax in 1999.

Sources

• Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale Fan website