In 1934, she began to work on the novel "Dynasty of Death", which she and Reback completed in collaboration. It was published in 1938 and became a best-seller. "Taylor Caldwell" was presumed to be a man, and there was some public stir when the author was revealed to be a woman. Over the next 43 years, she published 42 more novels, many of them best-sellers. For instance, "This Side of Innocence" was the biggest fiction seller of 1946, spending more than six months on the New York Times Fiction Best Seller list, including nine weeks at #1. (In 1947, according to "Time", her husband Marcus Reback discarded and burned the manuscripts of 140 unpublished novels.) Her published works sold an estimated 30 million copies. She became wealthy, traveling to Europe and elsewhere, though she still lived near Buffalo.