Josephine Bell

Josephine Bell
Born	Doris Collier 8 December 1897 Manchester, England
Died	24 April 1987 (aged 89) England
Nationality	British
Spouse(s)	Norman Ball (1923–????)

Josephine Bell, pseudonym of Doris Bell Collier, (8 December 1897–24 April 1987), was an English physician and writer. Bell wrote nineteen novels and forty-five mystery novels in her lifetime, as well as radio plays, short stories, and series for women's magazines.

Bell was born in Manchester, England in 1897 and studied at Godolphin School between 1910 and 1916. She then trained at Newnham College, Cambridge until 1919. At the University College Hospital in London she was granted M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. in 1922, and a M.B. B.S. in 1924.

In 1923, she married Dr. Norman Dyer Ball, and the couple had a son and three daughters. From 1927 until 1935 the couple practiced medicine in Greenwich and London. When her husband died, Bell moved to Guildford, Surrey. From 1954 through 1962 she was a member of the management committee of St. Luke's Hospital.

Bell began to write detective novels beginning in 1936 under her pen name. Many of her works used a medical background and featured the fictional character Dr. David Wintringham, who worked at Research Hospital in London as a junior assistant physician.

In 1953, Bell helped found the Crime Writers' Association and served as chair from 1959 to 1960.

Bibliography

David Wintringham

Death on the Borough Council, 1937 Murder in Hospital, 1937 Fall Over Cliff, 1938 Death at Half-Term, 1939 From Natural Causes, 1939 All Is Vanity, 1940

Death at the Medical Board, 1944 Death in Clairvoyance, 1949 The Summer School Mystery, 1950 Bones in the Barrow, 1953 The China Roundabout, 1956 The Seeing Eye, 1958

Other novels

The Port of London Murders, 1938 Trouble at Wrekin Farm, 1942 The Backing Winds, 1951 To Let, Furnished, 1952 Fires at Fairlawn, 1954 Death in Retirement, 1956 Double Doom, 1957 Easy Prey, 1959 The House Above the River, 1959 A Well-Known Face, 1960 New People at the Hollies, 1961 Adventure with Crime, 1962 A Flat Tyre in Fulham, 1963 The Hunter and the Trapped, 1963 The Alien, 1964 The Upfold Witch, 1964 No Escape, 1965

The Catalyst, 1966 Death on the Reserve, 1966 Death of a Con Man, 1968 The Fennister Affair, 1969 The Wilberforce Legacy, 1969 A Hydra with Six Heads, 1970 A Hole in the Ground, 1971 Death of a Poison-Tongue, 1972 A Pigeon Among the Cats, 1974 Victim, 1975 The Trouble in Hunter Ward, 1976 Such a Nice Client, 1977 A Swan-Song Betrayed, 1978 Wolf! Wolf!, 1979 A Question of Inheritance, 1980 The Innocent, 1983

External links

• Josephine Bell 1897-1987, Crime & Mystery Fiction.
• Josephine Bell, Detective-Fiction.com.
• History of the CWA.