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To: Rob D. who wrote (2841)	8/1/1999 7:28:00 PM
From: John R. Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3046

Thanks for posting this info.

To: Rob D. who wrote (2841)	8/3/1999 11:26:00 PM
From: Rob D.	Respond to of 3046

Here is some info on Taylor Caldwell: Biographical Information For: Taylor Caldwell Born: 1900, Prestwich, Manchester, England Died: 1985, Greenwich, Connecticut Pseudonym: Max Reiner Nationality: American Personal Born September 7, 1900, in Prestwich, Manchester, England; died of lung cancer, August 30, 1985, in Greenwich, Connecticut, United States; daughter of Arthur Francis (an artist) and Ann (Markham) Caldwell; married William Fairfax Combs, May 27, 1919 (divorced, 1931); married Marcus Reback, May 12, 1931 (died 1970); married William E. Stancell, June 17, 1972; married William Robert Prestie, 1978; children: (first marriage) Mary Margaret (Mrs. Gerald Fried);(second marriage) Judith Ann (Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt Goodman; died September, 1979). Education University of Buffalo, A.B., 1931. Career New York State Department of Labor, Buffalo, court reporter, 1923-24; U.S. Department of Justice, Buffalo, member of board of special inquiry, 1924-31; writer. Military U.S. Naval Reserve, yeomanette, 1918-19. Memberships American Legion, St. Francis Guild, Nazareth Guild, National Legion of Mary, Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima. Sidelights Taylor Caldwell is one of the world's most successful and popular novelists. Her works "are popular romances liberally peopled by villains and schemers, and often they deal with family dynasties," according to Edwin McDowell of the New York Times Book Review. Caldwell has chronicled the sagas of families involved in munitions manufacturing (Dynasty of Death), the steel industry (The Strong City), and the railroads (Never Victorious, Never Defeated). She has also written historical romances and religious novels. Her books have sold over thirty million copies in many editions and translations. Despite her phenomenal popularity, Caldwell's work has received mixed reviews from critics, who praise her rousing storytelling abilities while decrying her lush overwriting and poor characterization. Caldwell writes with an enthusiasm that has proved popular with readers. Her writing possesses what Jane Cobb of the New York Times describes as "a sort of wild, anything-goes vitality" that makes Caldwell's stories fast-moving and engrossing. F. H. Bullock of the New York Herald Tribune Book Review notes that Caldwell's The Devil's Advocate is an "engrossing story told with no claim to style but with great narrative ability." Richard Freedman of the New York Times Book Review holds that "Caldwell steadfastly insists on providing a good read!" While critics admire Caldwell's storytelling ability, they criticize her lack of literary style and her tendency to overwrite. A reviewer for Kirkus, for example, praises Caldwell's "gift of storytelling which is all too rare" but believes that it is "too bad she has no gift of style to go with it." A critic for Book List calls her "an adequate storyteller if the reader does not mind her unremarkable style; her popularity indicates many do not." William Soskin of Saturday Review describes Melissa as being "written in Taylor Caldwell's deepest purple." Reviewing Glory and the Lightning for the New York Times Book Review, Martin Levin states that it "is enrobed in the author's familiar verbosity." Caroline Tunstall of the New York Herald Tribune Book Review, in a review of Dear and Glorious Physician, warns that "any lover of English will cringe at its lush overwriting." Some reviewers have pointed out that Caldwell's overwriting extends to her treatment of characters as well. Caldwell's characters, John Hampson states in the Spectator, "are constantly biting lips, giving black looks, shedding angry tears, and drawing shuddering breaths." Nona Balakian of the New York Times notes the same problem, "at the least provocation her characters writhe, curse, foam, shriek, [and] pant." "[Caldwell's] characters," Genevieve Casey writes in the Chicago Tribune, "tend to be more numerous than profound, ... nevertheless, one must admit that she knows how to hold her readers." Part 1

To: Rob D. who wrote (2841)	8/3/1999 11:30:00 PM
From: Rob D.	Respond to of 3046

part 2 of 3 Other critics have been less generous when appraising Caldwell's writing. Anthony Boucher of the New York Times Book Review describes Caldwell's The Late Clara Beame as "notably lacking in any of the refinements of technique which we associate with the term 'writing.'... It appears that the author simply jots down a mass of words, in such order as to make the average unpublished amateur manuscript seem a masterpiece of subtle characterization, adroit exposition, and life-like dialogue." In discussing The Balance Wheel, a critic for the New Yorker writes: "One cannot help but admire the perseverance that allows Miss Caldwell to assemble so many words, page after page, chapter after chapter, but it is difficult not to be taken aback by her total lack of grace, of spirit, and of humor. The thought occurs, and recurs, that she simply has no talent for writing." Caldwell often incorporates her political ideas and concerns into her novels. In Captains and the Kings, for example, Caldwell portrays the machinations of the powerful group of international bankers who she believes manipulate the world's economies. The Devil's Advocate argues against the New Deal social legislation of President Franklin Roosevelt. Testimony of Two Men contains Caldwell's views about the income tax, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. Some critics find this mix of fiction and political comment quite effective. In a review of the historical novel The Arm and the Darkness, Herbert Gorman of the New York Times admires Caldwell's "concern with the deeper spiritual and philosophical implications of the period" and believes that her concern "raises the novel from a mere cloak- and-sword romance to the plane of the novel of ideas. One may read for pleasure (for a world of action is here) and one may read to think as well." Writing of the same novel, Felizia Seyd of the Weekly Book Review finds that "many of the pages leave the reader with that particular gentle elation which is a sure sign that mind and soul have been fed." In a review of Ceremony of the Innocent, Levin finds Caldwell's "ideology, in the light of the current conspiracy explosion, beginning to seem less exotic." Other critics, however, feel that Caldwell's political comments are somewhat heavy-handed. Casey finds Caldwell "as subtle as a sledge hammer in announcing her message." Charles Lee of the New York Times writes that in Dear and Glorious Physician "the author's political observations are too strident, too frequent, and too loaded with contemporary implications." Other critics object to the nature of Caldwell's opinions. Catholic World reviewer Riley Hughes calls The Devil's Advocate "unfunny, and quite dangerous, nonsense," while the Washington Post Book World critic considers On Growing Up Tough "a prolonged and bitter diatribe against 'liberals' (apparently anyone Caldwell finds distasteful), interwoven with arrogant little snippets of autobiography."

To: Rob D. who wrote (2841)	8/3/1999 11:32:00 PM
From: Rob D.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3046

part 3 of 3 Caldwell maintains that because the contemporary literary establishment is "liberal," her books have not been fairly received. William M. Kunstler writes in Crawdaddy that some years ago, "in a letter to Newsweek, Caldwell accused the [New York] Times' editors of publishing 'monotonously vicious' reviews of her books 'when their reporters discovered how intensely I hated Communists--and their fellow travellers.'" "If you are an anti-communist," Caldwell writes in On Growing Up Tough, "you are, per se, not a serious writer. I know. I've been through this." Caldwell sees the literary establishment as hostile to writers who share her convictions. "Many are the writers," Caldwell writes in On Growing Up Tough, "once famous thirty years ago, who are not read today or even known [because] they refused to become a part of the conspiracy against America, refused to shout for a second World War, refused to follow the Liberal/Communist line. So, they quietly disappeared from the awareness of readers." Taylor Caldwell, despite her own politically conservative stance, seems in no danger of disappearing from the awareness of her more than thirty million readers. Obituary Born September 7, 1900, in Prestwich, Manchester, England; died of pulmonary failure resulting from lung cancer, August 30, 1985, in Greenwich, Conn. Novelist. Caldwell, who was described in the New York Times as "one of the world's most prolific and best-selling authors," published the first of her more than thirty novels, Dynasty of Death, in 1938. The tone of her writing was considered masculine by the day's standards, which prompted the author's editor at Scribner's, Max Perkins, to convince her to write under the name Taylor Caldwell. Many of Caldwell's novels, which are characteristically well researched for historical accuracy, are multigenerational sagas of the struggle for wealth and power, as typified by Testimony of Two Men and Captains and the Kings, both of which were serialized for television. Though reviewers have generally praised Caldwell's narrative storytelling abilities, they have criticized her literary style. Some have found weaknesses in her characterizations, and some have deemed her plots formulaic and contrived, criticism that Caldwell dismissed as being the result of her strong "anti-Liberal/anti-Communist" themes. The mixed critical response to her books, however, has not diminished her popularity with the general reading public. Caldwell also wrote religious fiction, including Dear and Glorious Physician and I, Judas, and published one novel, Time No Longer, using the pseudonym Max Reiner. She also wrote under the pen name Marcus Holland. Information provided under copyright by Gale Research. Taken from Barnes & Noble Rob D