Gwendoline Butler

There was a quantum leap for John Coffin, in 1989. Starting with the book ‘Coffin in the Black Museum’ his creator took him from south London across the Thames and planted him in east London, in an imaginary district that was obviously based on Docklands. [10]

Gwendoline Butler can claim to be one of the most versatile women crime novelists. Her books have scored in four categories: modern detective stories, Victorian mysteries, Gothic stories and romantic novels. In 1973 the Crime Writers Association (CWA) awarded her the Silver Dagger for ‘A Coffin for Pandora’. A former member of the Committee of the CWA, a member of the Detection Club, she took her degree in history at Oxford and her training in research ensures complete accuracy in every book. [8]

The leading detective in the first three stories was an Inspector Winter. He appeared too in the fourth story ‘The Dull Dead’ (1958) but by this time the young John Coffin (described as “mercurial”) had made his first appearance, and it was with Coffin that Gwendoline Butler continued. [9]

In 1956 her John Coffin series of novels began publication under her married name, Gwendoline Butler. In 1962, she decided to use her grandmother’s name, Jennie Melville as a pseudonym to sign her Charmian Daniels novels. In addition to her mystery series, she also wrote romantic novels. In 1981, her novel The Red Staircase won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

On 16 October 1949, she married Dr Lionel Harry Butler (1923–1981), a professor of medieval history at University of St. Andrews and historian, Fellow of All Souls and Principal of Royal Holloway College. The marriage had a daughter, Lucilla Butler.

Gwendoline Butler, née Williams (19 August 1922 – 5 January 2013) was a British writer of mystery fiction and romance novels since 1956, she also used the pseudonym Jennie Melville. Credited for inventing the “woman’s police procedural”, is well known for her series of Inspector John Coffin novels as Gwendoline Butler, and by female detective Charmian Daniels as Jennie Melville.

Born Gwendoline Williams on 19 August 1922 in South London, England, daughter of Alice (Lee) and Alfred Edward Williams., her younger twin brothers are also authors. She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read History, and later lectured there.