Taylor Caldwell, born as Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell on September 7, 1900, was a highly prolific author of popular fiction, who also published books under the pen names Marcus Holland and Max Reiner, and by her married name of J. Miriam Reback. She was born in Manchester, England, and later emigrated to the United States with her parents and younger brother in 1907. After her father's death, the family struggled financially, and Caldwell's interest in writing was discouraged by her father, who did not approve of women pursuing careers.
Despite these challenges, Caldwell's passion for writing persisted, and she wrote her first novel, "The Romance of Atlantis," at the age of twelve, although it was not published until 1975. She worked in a bindery as a young woman but continued to write, producing 140 unpublished novels by 1947, which she later discarded and burned. Caldwell served in the United States Navy Reserve during World War I and went on to marry and have two children, Mary and Judith. She worked as a court reporter and later as a member of the immigration tribunal in the Buffalo division of the United States Department of Justice.
In 1931, Caldwell graduated from SUNY Buffalo and was divorced from her first husband, William Combs. She then married Marcus Reback, a fellow department of justice employee, with whom she had her second child, Judith. Caldwell's writing career took off in the late 1930s, with the publication of her novel "Dynasty of Death," which became a best-seller. Her works often featured real historical events or persons, and she wrote many best-sellers, including "This Side of Innocence," which was the biggest fiction seller of 1946. Her books sold an estimated 30 million copies, and she became a wealthy woman, traveling extensively despite living near Buffalo.
Caldwell was an outspoken conservative and wrote for the John Birch Society's monthly journal American Opinion. She also became interested in reincarnation in the 1970s and claimed to have recalled her own past lives through past-life regression. She married three times in her lifetime, with her last marriage to William Robert Prestie causing difficulties with her children. Caldwell suffered a stroke in 1979 and died of heart failure in Greenwich, Connecticut, on August 30, 1985. Her legacy as a prolific and popular author of historical fiction remains to this day.