Nell Alone - Jennie Melville - BBC Saturday Night Theatre

Gwendoline Butler, née Williams 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.

On 16 October 1949, she married Dr. Lionel Harry Butler 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.

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.

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

Originally Broadcast 3/9/1968

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