An unappreciated Fortean.
Janet Miriam Taylor Holland Caldwell was born 7 September 1900 in Manchester England. She seems to have been a natural-born story-teller: at age 6, she won an award for an essay on Charles Dickens; at 8, she wrote her first story; at 12, she finished her first novel—on Atlantis, which already points to her interest in the paranormal and occult. Her father, Arthur, was an artist for the Manchester Guardian when she was born, and, in 1907, moved the family (mother, Anne; Janet; and brother Arthur Jr.) to Buffalo, NY, for another newspaper job. The family was never well-off—Caldwell blamed her parents’s lack of ambition—and they struggled, much to Caldwell’s chagrin. Caldwell would later remember that she didn't have a childhood, or an adolescence: all was work. But she did have a dream. She met Mark Twain when he was visiting Buffalo, and told him she was a writer, too. He said that one day she would be famous.
Janet Miriam Taylor Holland Caldwell was born 7 September 1900 in Manchester England. She seems to have been a natural-born story-teller: at age 6, she won an award for an essay on Charles Dickens; at 8, she wrote her first story; at 12, she finished her first novel—on Atlantis, which already points to her interest in the paranormal and occult. Her father, Arthur, was an artist for the Manchester Guardian when she was born, and, in 1907, moved the family (mother, Anne; Janet; and brother Arthur Jr.) to Buffalo, NY, for another newspaper job. The family was never well-off—Caldwell blamed her parents’s lack of ambition—and they struggled, much to Caldwell’s chagrin. Caldwell would later remember that she didn't have a childhood, or an adolescence: all was work. But she did have a dream. She met Mark Twain when he was visiting Buffalo, and told him she was a writer, too. He said that one day she would be famous.