'Life's greatest adventure'

 

“Learning should be a joy and full of excitement. It is life's greatest adventure; it is an illustrated excursion into the minds of the noble and the learned.” – Taylor Caldwell

Born in England on Sept. 7, 1900 Caldwell emigrated to the U.S. in 1907 and spent many of her formative years living in poverty after her father died.  It shaped her values and she said she always wanted to have money and never again live in fear of want.  That goal was achieved with her writing successes; her book sales exceeding 40 million copies.

 

A writer even before leaving England (where she won a Charles Dickens Prize for young writers) she became a prolific author of popular fiction, writing under her own name and the pen names Marcus Holland, Max Reiner and J. Miriam Reback, her actual married name.

 

In her fiction, she often used real historical events or persons combined with her own vivid imagination, writing bestsellers like Dynasty of Death, Dear and Glorious Physician (about Saint Luke), The Earth is the Lord's (about Genghis Khan), and Captains and the Kings.   Before her death at age 85 she had 50 novels published and purportedly discarded 150 more. 

 

 A self-proclaimed “born skeptic” Caldwell said her mantra was simple: “Acquire an education, work extremely hard, and never deviate from my goal to make it.”