Virginia Coffman

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Virginia Coffman (born July 30, 1914 in San Francisco , † March 31, 2005 in Reno ) was an American writer. She worked for a long time as a screenwriter for various Hollywood studios (including for RKO and Columbia Studios) and TV stations. During this time she played some of her script roles herself. From the late 1950s, she established her fame as a freelance writer with her first mystery novels.

Working as a writer

From 1959, Coffman worked mainly as a writer and until her death wrote about ninety works from various genres: crime novels, westerns, women's crime novels and horror novels; all of her works are characterized by a tendency towards strong romanticism ( Gothic Novel ), which stands in a certain contrast to the enlightened behavior of the protagonists. Some of her books have an impact on the fantastic, mostly the "ghostly" in her books has real (often criminal) origins and turns out to be machinations of negative characters. Coffman's literature follows a certain tradition of the work of Daphne du Maurier . In addition to mostly independent, completed novels, the author wrote two novel cycles, namely Moura and Devil's Cove.

Virginia Coffman has often traveled to the places that she later intended to make the setting for her novels in order to be precise. So they led their travels all over America, and they also undertook extensive trips to Europe (including Spain and France).

Significant works

Among the best-known works by Virginia Coffman are the novels Demon Tower (German: The Tower of Demons , published by Heyne) from 1966 and The Village of the Cursed (Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 1972). While in the Tower of Demons the heroine, a locksmith's heiress, struggles with the threatening madness caused by criminal machinations, the American main protagonist in The Village of the Cursed on a trip to Spain falls into the hands of an eerie sect. Virginia Coffman's works have been published frequently by Heyne since the 1960s and found a suitable setting in the Heyne Romantic Thriller series. Occasionally one or the other of her works, especially The Tower of Demons , is still reissued today, most recently the also very well-known novel Flowers of Fear .

Reputation as a writer

Virginia Coffman was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Nevada Writers (University of Nevada, Reno) in 1990 and was a member of both the Authors League of America and the Mystery Writers Guild of America . She was also included in the lists Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who in the West . The author had the reputation of having had the most significant influence on the Gothic hype of that time in the sixties and is accordingly still referred to in her home country as the “Queen of Gothic Horror”. Coffman's works have been translated into many languages, including a. into Italian, German, French and Russian. Her books are available as special editions and some of her works have also been set to music as audio books (in the United States).

Pseudonym Virginia Coffmans

Some of the author's works have been published under the following pseudonyms: Kay Cameron, Victor Cross, Jeanne Duval, Virginia C. Du Vaul, Diana Saunders, and Ann (e) Stanfield.

Links to the author and her works

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography and works at the University of Nevada  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 12, 2011@1@ 2Template: dead link / knowledgecenter.unr.edu  
personal data
SURNAME Coffman, Virginia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cameron, Kay (pseudonym); Cross, Victor (pseudonym); Duval, Jeanne (pseudonym); Vaul, Virginia C. Du (pen name); Saunders, Diana (pseudonym); Stanfiel, Anne (pseudonym); Stanfiel, Ann (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 2005
Place of death Reno