Carolyn Gold Heilbrun

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Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (January 13, 1926 - October 9, 2003), American academic and feminist author, wrote mystery novels under the pen name of Amanda Cross.

Heilbrun taught English at Columbia University from 1960 to 1993. She was the first woman to get tenure in the English department. Her academic specialty was British modern literature, with a particular interest in the Bloomsbury group.

She was the author of twelve Kate Fansler mysteries, written under the name Amanda Cross. Fansler, like Heilbrun, was an English professor. Heilbrun initially kept her second career as a mystery novelist secret in order to protect her academic career.

In addition to her mystery novels, Heilbrun was the author of 14 nonfiction books, incuding the feminist study Writing a Woman's Life (1988). These books include:

• The Garnett Family (1961)
• Toward a Recognition of Androgyny (1973)
• Lady Ottoline's Album (1976) (editor)
• Reinventing Womanhood (1979)
• The Representation of Women in Fiction (1983) (co-editor)
• Hamlet's Mother and Other Women (1990) (collection of essays)
• The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem (1995)
• The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty (1997) ISBN 0345422953

Heilbrun committed suicide at her apartment in New York City. According to her son, she was not ill, but felt that her life had been completed.