Amanda Cross

Amanda Cross, real name Carolyn Gold Heilbrun was an American author and academic who was best known for writing feminist and mystery novels under the pseudonym Amanda Cross. Cross went to Columbia University where she studied English literature getting her Master of Arts degree in 1951 and in 1951 a Ph.D. At Columbia, she studied under Lionel Trilling and Jacques Barzun and listed Clifton Fadiman as one of her greatest inspirations. Some of her experiences at Columbia were documented in the 2002 book “When Men Were the Only Models We Had: My Teachers Barzun, Fadiman, Trilling”. Cross went on to teach English at Columbia for over three decades between 1960 and 1992, becoming the first tenured woman in the university’s English department. She was a specialist in British modern literature, particularly focusing on the Bloomsbury Group. She wrote several academic titles focusing on feminist themes and was a co-founder and co-editor of the Columbia University Press together with colleague and friend Nancy K. Miller. As editor, she was responsible for the publication of “Press Gender and Culture” series. In the seven years between 1985 and 1992, she served as Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities Department at Columbia.