 After travelling to Göttingen to absorb some mathematical culture, Reid decided instead to write a full-length biography of David Hilbert, who she considered the greatest mathematician of the first half of the twentieth century.Julia encouraged her in this project, and the biography was published in 1970 as "Hilbert".The Hilbert biography was a success among mathematicians, and her next book was a biography of another Göttingen figure, Richard Courant, published in 1976 as "Courant in Göttingen and New York".