The devotion of Andre Norton to the imaginative worlds of literature has spanned nearly her entire life. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Alice Mary Norton began her literary career at a young age by not only editing her high-school newspaper but also writing her first novel while still in her teens. Her second novel was written and published before she was twenty-one. After attending Western Reserve University (1930-1932), Norton continued to write while serving as a children's librarian for the Cleveland Public Library from 1932 to 1950 and later working for the Library of Congress. Now living in Florida she devotes full time to writing, having produced nearly ninety books as of 1980: fourteen historical romances; eight tales of legend and magic for children; and sixty-six volumes which fit into the shifting category of science fiction/fantasy.

All of Norton's novels are primarily adventure stories, romances set in the exotic and carefully...