"There's something so vivid and immediate about them. They are written not as historical documents, and not with an eye to posterity," says Natalie Wexler. "They're written the way you might write an e-mail to someone, a friend or a spouse to tell them what's going on in your life."

She is talking about the letters that are the framework of her historical novel, "A More Obedient Wife, A Novel of the Early Supreme Court." The story, which takes place in Edenton and revolves around its favorite son, James Iredell, tells the tale of two women, their marriages, and the decisions they make in life. It is also a novel about the workings of the United States Supreme Court during its first decade, a subject Wexler is uniquely qualified to write about.

Like all historical novels, Wexler's book is a mixture of fact and fiction. The letters, gathered from historical archives across the country, are reproduced in italics verbatim.

Much however, is imagined. Sexual attractions, love triangles, and the thoughts that lead a woman to hold onto a marriage under difficult circumstances can only be imagined after 200 years. But an alcoholic English mother-in-law, a May/December marriage, and financial scandals are a matter of record.

Readers pick up historical fiction for more than a good plot. They demand insights into another place and time. Wexler is in a unique position to provide that. She learned her writing craft as an undergraduate in English at Harvard, perfecting the art of storytelling at summer writing workshops sponsored by the University of Iowa's renowned writing program.

A master's degree in history from the University of Sussex in England taught her the craft of historical research and interpretation and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania paved the way for a term as law clerk to Justice Byron White. It was there she got a chance to see the present day court in action.

After that Wexler went on to work with a staff of historians on "The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800," an exhaustive, eight-volume study of the period that includes her novel's characters.

"To have some first hand experience as to what the Supreme Court is like now and then to become a historian of it is really fascinating because things have changed so much. The court was a much more ad hoc, informal institution with much less to do in the 1790's," Wexler said.

Among her historical discoveries were the details of her novel's less famous Supreme Court justice, James Wilson of Philadelphia. Wilson is not as well known as Iredell, for whom a county in North Carolina is named, though Wexler says he should be.

"Wilson is one of only six men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution," Wexler said. "He was a major architect of the Constitution and a thinker. He gave a series of lectures on the law that were attended by the President, the Vice President, and many members of Congress. But because he died in such disgrace, we don't learn about him in the third grade like we do James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. He really has been swept under the rug."

The seeds of Wilson's downfall were sown from his desire to be among the richest men in America. That's what his bride thought she was getting when at 19 she married Wilson, a widower, at the age of 51.

He was a land speculator with an eye for a deal. He also did not know when to quit, going further into debt with each passing year until his empire collapsed.

One historian described him as dying broke and in disgrace in the arms of his teenage bride while hiding from his creditors, and dependent on the hospitality of friends. With a little better luck, things may have been remembered differently.

"In those days reputation was very important. Bankruptcy was not viewed the way it is now. It was still seen as a moral failing. If you were a large debtor, like James Wilson was, it was debtor's prison or you came to a private agreement with your creditors," Wexler said.

Wilson refused to do that, insisting to the last that he would salvage the situation. In the end he retreated to Edenton and the hospitality of his friends, James and Hannah Iredell, unable to attend Supreme Court sessions for fear of arrest. If he had not died in Edenton, he most likely would have been impeached according to Wexler.

She believes Wilson was the victim of his compulsions, unable to face the fact that his house of cards had collapsed.