Judith St. George, who was born and raised in Westfield, New Jersey, had two childhood passions, reading and sports. "In winter I skated on a swamp pond and sledded," she says. "The rest of the year I played tennis and softball. As for books, I read everything I could get my hands on, and still do."

Following her graduation from Smith College, judith married David St. George. They lived the following year in the historic Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was George Washington's headquarters during the first year of the American Revolution. Judith attributes much of her love of history, about which she writes with such authority, to this amazing experience.

When Judith writes a book, enthusiasm for her subject leads her to put on stout boots. She has traveled all through the Great Plains and along the Lewis and Clark Trail, climbed a 30-foot rope ladder to board a ship in the Panama Canal, hiked to the top of Mount Rushmore and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge countless times. "People always comment on how hard the research must be, but I tell them that it's the research that's fun," she says. "I want to bring the people I write about alive