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.
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.
Gilman's life is strongly reflected in her writing. She traveled extensively, and her travels became the settings for her Mrs. Pollifax books. In the 1970s, she moved to a property in a small town in Nova Scotia where she grew most of her own vegetables and herbs. This period was the focus of her memoir, A New Kind of Country. Her knowledge of medicinal herbs informed several of her stories, including A Nun in the Closet and Thale's Folly. Thale's Folly is one of her few books featuring a male protagonist; most of her books feature strong women having adventures around the world. In addition to Nova Scotia, Gilman spent much of her life in Connecticut, Maine, and New Mexico.
In 2010 Gilman was awarded the annual Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America.
In 2012, she died at age 88 of complications of Alzheimer's disease.
Under her married name, Dorothy Gilman Butters, she wrote books for young adults (except as noted) beginning in the late 1940s:
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; for children) (ASIN B000moc1qk)
Girl in Buckskin (1956) (ISBN 978-0-449-70380-9)
Heartbreak Street (1958) (ASIN B00209ktic)
Witch's Silver (1959) (ASIN B0006avz6m)
Masquerade (1961) (ASIN B0006ax1im)
Heart's Design (Masquerade Republished) (1963) (ASIN B000ts8al4)