The Commodore, as Vanderbilt was called, lived from 1794 to 1877, leading an extraordinarily long and important career, yet (like Jesse James) had never been the subject of a satisfactory biography.
By the time it appeared, I had already started work on my next biography: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, published on April 21, 2009, also by Knopf. Jesse James received a generous critical response. The resulting biography, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, was published in 2002 by Alfred A. More than that, James remains an American icon-a challenging subject for a writer-and had never received the nonfiction treatment he deserved. My desire to write a large-scale, original narrative about the period led me to the subject of Jesse James, who had been underestimated as a significant, purposeful, and political figure. Here, I believe, we can see the makings of the modern United States. My independent studies turned my attention to nineteenth-century America, particularly the era of the Civil War. I also wrote articles for the Smithsonian, and opinion pieces that were published by the Denver Post and the Los Angeles Times. I authored a five-volume series of historical anthologies. I also began an independent writing career.
There I worked with many leading American historians published by the press, as I submitted to them my 300-word descriptions of their books and discussed how best to explain their work in a highly condensed form. I went to work for Oxford University Press, writing catalog and jacket copy.
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