Caldwell, Taylor
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1900-1985) UK-born author, in US from childhood, who concentrated on extremely successful suspense-filled family sagas. Her first sf novel, The Devil's Advocate (1952), though set in 1970, is effectively a right-wing denunciation of the New Deal of the 1930s, whose welfare policies (it suggests) have made an oppressive Dystopia inevitable; fortunately, rebels known as the Minute Men are destined to save the day. Her second effort, Your Sins and Mine (1955), is fundamentally Fantasy, in that the devastating drought inflicted by the Lord upon the world for its sins can be removed by assiduous prayer. She was also responsible for fantasies like The Listener (1960) and its sequel, No One Hears but Him (1966), and Dialogues with the Devil (1967). The Romance of Atlantis (1975), with Jess Stearn, is based on a novel she first wrote when aged 12; Caldwell claimed that it in turn was based on her childhood dreams of her previous incarnation (see Reincarnation) as an empress in Atlantis. [JC]
Janet Miriam Taylor Holland Caldwell
born Manchester, England: 7 September 1900
died Greenwich, Connecticut: 30 August 1985
works (selected)
- The Devil's Advocate (New York: Crown Publishers, 1952) [hb/]
- Your Sins and Mine (New York: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1955) [pb/]
- The Listener (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1960) [hb/]
- No One Hears but Him (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1966) [hb/]
- Dialogues with the Devil (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1967) [hb/Jack Brusca]
- The Romance of Atlantis (New York: Morrow, 1975) with Jess Stearn [hb/Tom Miller]
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