Dorothy Gilman

Dorothy Edith Gilman (June 25, 1923 – February 2, 2012) was an American writer. She is best known for the Mrs. Pollifax series of spy novels, about spy and grandmother Emily Pollifax, who becomes a spy in her 60s. In 2010, Gilman was the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award recipient.

Biography Dorothy Gilman was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to minister James Bruce and Essa (Starkweather) Gilman. She started writing when she was 9. At 11, she competed against 10- to 16-year-olds in a story contest and won first place. Planning to write and illustrate books for children, she attended Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1940 to 1945. She married teacher Edgar A. Butters, Jr. September 15, 1945; they divorced in 1965. The couple had two children, Christopher and Jonathan. Gilman attended the University of Pennsylvania and Art Students' League from 1963 to 1964. She was Unitarian.

Gilman worked as an art teacher and telephone operator before becoming an author. She wrote children's stories for more than ten years under the name Dorothy Gilman Butters and then began writing adult novels about Mrs. Pollifax, a retired grandmother who becomes a CIA agent. The Mrs. Pollifax series made Gilman famous.

In 2012, she died at age 88 of complications of Alzheimer's disease.

Works

As Dorothy Gilman Butters Under her married name, Dorothy Gilman Butters, she wrote books for young adults (except as noted) beginning in the late 1940s: Enchanted Caravan (1949) Carnival Gypsy (1950) Ragamuffin Alley (1951) The Calico Year (1953) Four Party Line (1954) Papa Dolphin's Table (1955; for children) Girl in Buckskin (1956) Heartbreak Street (1958) Witch's Silver (1959) Masquerade (1961) Heart's Design (Masquerade Republished) (1963) Ten Leagues to Boston Town (1963) The Bells of Freedom (1963)

She also contributed to Good Housekeeping, Jack and Jill, Redbook, Ladies' Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, The Writer, and other magazines.

She also contributed a chapter to the book, On Creative Writing, edited by Paul Engle (1964).

The Mrs. Pollifax series Gilman began writing under her maiden name for the first book of the Mrs. Pollifax series, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. The heroine, the eccentric Emily Pollifax, is a 60-ish, bored, garden-clubbing grandmother, and widow. Considering her life without real purpose, and after briefly contemplating suicide, she presents herself to the CIA, offering to serve as an agent. Initially recruited through a misunderstanding, she is excited, and a bit clueless about her role, but she quickly adapts to an unfortunate turn of events, and displays the common sense and grit that will guide her through future intrigues.

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, Zambia, Sicily, and elsewhere.

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1966) The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (1970) The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (1971) A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax (1973) Mrs. Pollifax on Safari (1977) Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (1983) Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha (1985) Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle (1988) Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish (1990) Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief (1993) Mrs. Pollifax Pursued (1995) Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer (1996) Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist (1997) Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled (2000)

Other books Additional books she wrote under the name Dorothy Gilman: Uncertain Voyage (1967) Clairvoyant Countess (1975) A Nun in the Closet (1975), Winner of the Catholic Book Award A New Kind of Country (1978) (reissued by Fawcett in 1989) ; (memoir), memoir of her life in a Nova Scotia village The Tightrope Walker (1979) The Maze in the Heart of the Castle (1983; for young adults) Incident at Badamya (1989) Caravan (1992) Thale's Folly (1999) Kaleidoscope: A Countess Karitska Novel (2002)

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.