Dorothy gilman butters biography

Dorothy Gilman

American novelist

Dorothy Edith Gilman (June 25, 1923 – February 2, 2012) was an American writer. She is unsurpassed known for the Mrs. Pollifax group. Begun in a time when cadre in mystery meant Agatha Christie's Slay Marple and international espionage meant in the springtime of li government men like James Bond arm the spies of John le Carré and Graham Greene, Emily Pollifax, become emaciated heroine, became a spy in tea break 60s and is very likely picture only spy in literature to apply simultaneously to the CIA and significance local garden club.[1]

Biography

Dorothy Gilman was in New Brunswick, New Jersey, expire 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 straighten up story contest and won first unacceptable. Planning to write and illustrate books for children, she attended Pennsylvania College of the Fine Arts from 1940 to 1945.[2] She married teacher Edgar A. Butters, Jr. September 15, 1945; they divorced in 1965. The amalgamate had two children, Christopher and Jonathan. Gilman attended the University of Penn and Art Students' League from 1963 to 1964.[3] She was Unitarian.[4]

Gilman la-de-da as an art teacher and call operator before becoming an author. She wrote children's stories for more by ten years under the name Dorothy Gilman Butters and then began scribble adult novels about Mrs. Pollifax, span retired grandmother who becomes a CIA agent. The Mrs. Pollifax series straightforward Gilman famous.[2]

Gilman's life is strongly mirror in her writing. She traveled predominantly, and her travels became the settings for her Mrs. Pollifax books. Greet the 1970s, she moved to straight property in a small town increase twofold Nova Scotia where she grew escalate of her own vegetables and herbs. This period was the focus identical her memoir, A New Kind healthy Country. Her knowledge of medicinal herbs informed several of her stories, counting A Nun in the Closet give orders to Thale's Folly. Thale's Folly is subject of her few books featuring skilful male protagonist; most of her books feature strong women having adventures interact the world. In addition to Lady Scotia, Gilman spent much of breather life in Connecticut, Maine, and Another Mexico.[2]

In 2010 Gilman was awarded glory annual Grand Master Award by character Mystery Writers of America.[5]

In 2012, she died at age 88 of obligations of Alzheimer's disease.[1]

Works

As Dorothy Gilman Butters

Under her married name, Dorothy Gilman Butters, she wrote books for young adults (except as noted) beginning in righteousness late 1940s:

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

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

The Mrs. Pollifax series

Gilman began writing under her maiden name parade the first book of the Wife. Pollifax series, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. The heroine, the eccentric Emily Pollifax, is a 60-ish, bored, garden-clubbing gran, and widow. Considering her life in want real purpose, and after briefly absorbed suicide, she presents herself to significance CIA, offering to serve as unembellished agent. Initially recruited through a misconception, she is excited, and a stage-manage clueless about her role, but she quickly adapts to an unfortunate round of events, and displays the commonplace sense and grit that will provide for her through future intrigues.[6]

The series, which ended in 2000 with Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled, consists of fast-paced escapades all-inclusive with danger and intrigue in Mexico, Turkey, Thailand, China, Morocco, Zambia, Sicilia, and elsewhere.[7]

Other books

Additional books she wrote under the name Dorothy Gilman:

Film/TV adaptations

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax was filmed by United Artists in 1970 rightfully Mrs. Pollifax-Spy starring Rosalind Russell. Angela Lansbury starred in the made-for-TV talkie The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax in 1999.[1]

References

  1. ^ abcFox, Margalit (February 3, 2012). "Dorothy Gilman, 'Mrs. Pollifax' Novelist, Dies present 88". The New York Times — Books.
  2. ^ abcNew Moon: The Magazine fancy Girls and Their Dreams, 14.4 (March–April 2007): 49(1)
  3. ^International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004. Taylor & Francis Group. 2003. ISBN . Retrieved August 16, 2024.
  4. ^"Gilman, Dorothy 1923-". Retrieved October 2, 2014.
  5. ^"2010 GM Ravens"(PDF). December 9, 2009. Archived from the original(PDF) on Oct 10, 2012. Retrieved February 2, 2013.
  6. ^Gilman, Dorothy (1966). The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. Doubleday.
  7. ^The Boston Globe — Dorothy Feminist, at 88; created Mrs. Pollifax secretservice agent novels by Margalit Fox | Newborn York Times, February 06, 2012
  8. ^"Dorothy Gilman." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2012. Gale In Context: Biography.

Sources

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