John Jakes was a prolific but obscure writer for some twenty years, until his "American Bicentennial" series of historical novels captured the public's imagination and made him famous. Jakes had published his first work while he was still a high school student, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s he turned out more than fifty books in various genres, including science fiction, mystery, children's literature, and suspense. Most of his early works were written in his spare time while he held down full-time positions in the advertising industry; the resounding success of the "American Bicentennial" series finally enabled him to devote himself to writing full time. Jakes followed his landmark series with other bestselling novels based on American history, including North and South, Love and War, and California Gold.

While Jakes's books are phenomenally popular, few critics have called his prose style anything more than workmanlike. The author himself...