Pauline Esther Phillips (born Friedman; July 4, 1918 – January 16, 2013), also known as Abigail Van Buren, was an American advice columnist and radio show host who began the well-known "Dear Abby" newspaper column in 1956.

Her identical twin Esther Pauline Friedman (married name Lederer) was columnist Ann Landers.

Phillips graduated from Central High School[4] in Sioux City and Morningside College, where she studied journalism and psychology.

[5][6] Pauline married Morton Phillips of Minneapolis, and had son Edward and daughter Jeanne.

She phoned the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and said that she could write a better advice column than the one that she had been reading in the newspaper.

[10] Her twin sister was the author of the Ann Landers column, and the competition created acrimony between them for many years.

[12] Newspapers had included gossip and personal columnists for more than a century, but the two sisters added "something special", according to Life, in that they were the first to publish letters and replies covering a wide range of personal problems, replying with "vaudeville punch lines" rooted in common sense.

"[12] With her comic and flinty yet fundamentally sympathetic voice, Mrs. Phillips helped wrestle the advice column from its weepy Victorian past into a hard-nosed 20th-century present.

This attitude carried over into her column in the late 1950s, and she considered women "faintly ridiculous" if they were unable to make their marriages work.

"[12] In her later years, she did not avoid suggesting divorce when a relationship became "intolerable", and considered how a bad marriage might affect children: "When kids see parents fighting, or even sniping at each other, I think it is terribly damaging.