If critics took the author of "Never Victorious, Never Defeated" as seriously as she takes herself, articles would have long since appeared on "The World of Taylor Caldwell." Fourteen of the sixteen novels she has published in less than two decades portray important aspects of American life in the period from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present time, most of them concerned with families of great wealth and power. Three of the novels, beginning with "Dynasty of Death," have to do with the Barbour-Bouchard family and the manufacture of munitions. In other novels she has done steel, textiles and lumber, and now she has turned to railroading….

If someone were to repeat to Miss Caldwell Scott Fitzgerald's famous statement that the very rich are different from the rest of us, she would doubtless reply, "Yes, they are more interesting." And there are millions of readers...