Catherine Drinker Bowen was an American biographer. She won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1958 for The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke. She received the Women's National Book Association Award in 1962. Her biographies of John Adams, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikowsky were Book of the Month Club recommendations. She was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Lehigh University. No. 1 on The New York Times Nonfiction best seller list for 1 week, from the issue of November 5, 1944. Wiki link