“The nature of human beings never changes; it is immutable. The present generation of children and the present generation of young adults from the age of thirteen to eighteen is, therefore, no different from that of their great-great-grandparents. Political fads come and go; theories rise and fall; the scientific ‘truth’ of today becomes the discarded error of tomorrow. Man’s ideas change, but not his inherent nature.
That remains. So, if the children are monstrous today – even criminal – it is not because their natures have become polluted, but because they have not been taught better, nor disciplined.” –from Taylor Caldwell’s On Growing Up Tough, chapter The Purple Lodge
There’s a very expensive brick house mansion neighborhood on the other side of the golf course aligning Bailey Avenue and the University of Buffalo. Here resided Taylor Caldwell, for years and years of extensive world-wide best-selling book writing. She was just remarkable in her output.
My fellow teen friend complained of her travels abroad or reclusivity at home and having to wait to get paid for lawn mowing or cleaning her garage—my uncle and aunt lived across the road from her and had their tales and observances but little direct contact—and my friends from high school who lived next door to her told a story: that she turned her kitchen light on at 11 o’clock every single night without fail, and placed a tall bottle of vodka next to her typewriter, and worked till an emptied bottle’s dawn. That was her writer’s modus operandi, a night owl who worked till dawn, sipping away.
She missed speaking at my graduation from St Bonaventure in 1979—her publicist blaming the flu, but we mused it might have been the “vodka flu” no less. She made wonderful historical, sociological and pace setting stories—stories that wrapt a nation’s best selling attention and an expanding world of literary delight.
Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell was born On This Day, September 7, 1900. She was a prolific author of popular fiction, also known by the pen names Marcus Holland and Max Reiner, and by her married name of J. Miriam Reback.
Think of best sellers today. In Taylor Caldwell’s time, she was as much to the world from Buffalo as Agatha Chrsitie once was to England. She was the tops. And just gather a look at her arriving here from her England, and settling in Buffalo. If you’re young enough, you do not know the ominous pride Buffalo shared for harboring this great world writer, and yet—wow did she avoid any press. And so it was—she was really almost not even from here. But oh she was…
Taylor Caldwell was born in Manchester, England. Her family descended from the Scottish clan of MacGregor; the Taylors are a subsidiary clan. In 1907 she emigrated to the US with her family.
Upon landing in the US she quickly became a Buffalo girl of a most serious stature. Between 1918 and 1919 she served in the United States Navy Reserve. Then she was a court reporter in New York State Department of Labor in Buffalo, New York. From 1924 to 1931 she was a member of the Board of Special Inquiry at the Department of Justice in Buffalo. In 1931 she graduated from the University at Buffalo. In collaboration with her second husband, Marcus Reback, she wrote several bestsellers, the first of which was Dynasty of Death.
Taylor Caldwell’s books sold over thirty million copies. Among her several awards, she received the National League of American Pen Women gold medal (1948), Buffalo Evening News Award (1949), and Grand Prix Chatvain (1950).
She married four times altogether, something not common in parochial Buffalo. She had two daughters, Judith and Mary (Judith died in 1979). Caldwell kept writing until 1980, when a stroke left her deaf and unable to speak. She died of heart and lung disease on September 2, 1985.
Some memorable quotes from Taylor:
“There can be help. There’s always God,” said Amy. “I’m ashamed. I’d forgotten about Him.” She was quiet for a time. When she lifted her head she looked older and resolute. “Don’t blame yourself too much, Cousin Caroline,” she said. “That’s as bad as taking no blame at all. I’m not going to blame everything on Ames; I was a little fool myself. I was old enough to know that things aren’t simple.” – A Prologue to Love
“The American insanity for Loving Everybody is ruining my good temper and delivering my stomach to enormous bouts with acidity.” – On Growing Up Tough, chapter Dolts and Love Cultists
“There is no solid satisfaction in any career for a woman like myself. There is no home, no true freedom, no hope, no joy, no expectation for tomorrow, no contentment. I would rather cook a meal for a man and bring him his slippers and feel myself in the protection of his arms than have all the citations and awards and honors I have received worldwide, including the Ribbon of Legion of Honor and my property and my bank accounts. They mean nothing to me. And I am only one among the millions of sad women like myself.” – “Ask Them Yourself”
Taylor’s Bibliography is extensive:
Dynasty of Death (1938)
This Very Earth (1940)
The Eagles Gather (1940)
The Earth is the Lord’s: A Tale of the Rise of Genghis Khan (1940)
Time No Longer (1941)
The Strong City (1942)
The Arm and the Darkness (1943)
The Turnbulls (1943)
The Final Hour (1944)
The Wide House (1945)
This Side of Innocence (1946)
There Was A Time (1947)
Melissa (1948)
Let Love Come Last (1949)
The Beautiful Is Vanished (1951)
The Balance Wheel (1951)
The Devil’s Advocate (1952) – speculative fiction – near-future totalitarian America
Maggie – Her Marriage (1953)
Never Victorious, Never Defeated (1954)
Your Sins and Mine (1955)
Tender Victory (1956)
The Sound of Thunder (1957)
Dear and Glorious Physician (1958) – life of Luke the Evangelist
The Listener (1960)
A Prologue to Love (1961)
Man Who Listens (1961)
To See the Glory (1963)
The Late Clara Beame (1963)
Grandmother and the Priests (1963)
A Pillar of Iron (1965) – life of Marcus Tullius Cicero
Wicked Angel (1965)
No One Hears But Him (1966)
Dialogues with the Devil (1967)
Testimony of Two Men (1968)
Great Lion of God (1970) – life of Paul of Tarsus
Growing Up Tough (1971)
On Growing Up Tough (1971)
Captains and the Kings (1972)
To Look and Pass (1973)
Glory and the Lightning (1974) – life of Aspasia, mistress of Pericles
[[Romance of Atlantis]] (1975) (with Jess Stearn)
Ceremony of the Innocent (1976)
I, Judas (1977) – life of Judas Iscariot (with Jess Stearn)
Bright Flows the River (1978)
Answer As A Man (1980)
The Child From the Sea (1994)
And that’s the news from On This Day from Buffalo.