*|FNAME|*, there are two Open Road sales of Taylor Caldwell books today: The Sound of Thunder and Volume 1 of her collected works. For the first I've given the advertisement with the abstract of OR for this (1957) volume.

In my own library of TC volumes, I have only two with TC signatures: Sound of Thunder and Never Victorious: Never Defeated (1954). This, the period of TC's greatest success, was just short of 20 years after her first publication, and it was only slightly longer to go until her final incapacitation in 1980. I think in important ways it stands for a mid-career demarcation. With slight variation, the two signatures read as
To Peggy and Gerry with love – Mama (Taylor Caldwell)
Fortunately, because of Peggy's autobiography, I can add nuance to the unusual, for TC, declaration of a close relation to Peggy (or my parents). Recall, Peggy had 900+ continuous pages, unseparated by chapters or other phase or stage changing marks. In, however, my division there is a separation from the first 3rd of the autobiography indicated by

Part II (of 3): Privilege and Depression: Chapters 8–13:
whose first chapter has this title: Chapter 8: Travel in a Tiny World.

That title refers to the mixture of the most joyful feelings that Peggy expresses anywhere in her autobiography stemming from her being with TC on her ocean liner travels. What would have struck an outside observer: Peggy never leaves the vessel, though it docks in far off exotic ports. It seems Peggy could stand expansion into the whole world, only so far.

Still, so starts a period for her, that is as close to exhiliration as Peggy ever got. Since her concentration was on TC, and her mother was paying attention to her – indeed, needed her – now she was present for that period of TC's fame for which there was personal written observation from no other.

The dust jacket of that original edition copy of The Sound of Thunder has a description of the novel that is considerably more enticing than that of OR. I put it below for you. It shows that this novel delves into the characters of a family of a different nature than in her other family novels.

Following that I have put the link to collected works volume – of three novels – with a listing of those novels.

The Sound of Thunder

By Taylor Caldwell


$2.99 $19.99


EXPIRES 4/29/21


Bestseller, Historical Fiction



 

New York Times bestseller

A self-made man sacrifices everything for his family in turn-of-the-century New York—but his success comes at a great cost that must eventually be paid.

“Rich in emotion and incident, dreams and portents.” —New York Herald Tribune

 

 

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The 1957 abstract: The author spans the years 1904–37 to tell the history of an American family which settled in upper New York State and brought forth its good and bad fruit. There years were enough for a small food story to become a great grocery chain, and for the stengths of Maria Enger and the weaknesses of Heinrich Enger to shape the lives of their five children.

From the beginning Heinrich insisted he had the astonishing ability of know just what was to be the lot of each of his children. He was unbendingly confident of the rightness of this foreknowledge and, in four instances he was well pleased. It was only in the future of his second son, Edward, that he found no grounds for high expectation: Unlike his brothers and sister, Edward was simply not cut out to be a genius.

Under the pressure of the Engers' poverty Edward was taken out of school and put to work in the Family's store. It was expected that in this plug-horse role – a role he was at first flatter to accept – Edward could help the other Enger children to the better schooling their special talents seemed to demand.

But almost immediately the errors in Heinrich's estimate of his various offspring began to show, for there were new pressures – those of a family too tightly bound together, of Heinrich's false images of his children, of Edward's compulsion to dominate, and of a world war which toppled monuments to the old and left a rubble of disallusionment and fear. [TC builds a novel] of envy and mounning tension between brothers, of an unvoiced struggle between husband and wife, of forlorn searching after self-esteem, and of hopeless and rewarded love.

The Collected Novels of Taylor Caldwell Volume One $4.99:

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Michael Fried, Grandson
For the Descendants of Taylor Caldwell