Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling author of novels including A Woman of Substance, has died aged 91, her publisher has confirmed.
The novelist died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness, “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”.
Described as “the grande dame of blockbusters”, Taylor Bradford published her 40th novel in 2023, the third in her Victorian family saga House of Falconer series. Cumulative sales of her books across her lifetime reached more than 91m copies, and were published in more than 40 languages and in 90 countries. Her books often charted the rags to riches stories of young women from humble backgrounds who become successful in the world of business thanks to years of hard graft – in echoes of her own trajectory as ‘a girl from Yorkshire that worked hard and made good’.
After leaving school at 15, Leeds-born Ms Taylor Bradford, worked as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post and became the paper’s first woman’s editor, before moving to London to pursue a successful career in journalism. At the age of 20 she moved to London and worked in Fleet Street for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News.
She was introduced to her husband Bob by neighbours and immediately felt like she had ‘known him her whole life’.
Aged 28, when she was in her own words ‘bolshy and slightly overweight – a bit like a Sixties Bridget Jones’ – she met her husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, and they fell in love at first sight, marrying in London on Christmas Eve in 1963.
When they moved to New York, she could easily have settled into being a high society wife, but after failed attempts at writing a suspense novel, she hit the big time when A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, making her an overnight success at the age of 38.
The story followed Emma Harte’s journey from life as a servant in rural Yorkshire to heading a business empire, despite numerous personal tragedies along the way. Six sequels in the Emma Harte saga followed, and a long-awaited prequel, A Man of Honour, was published in 2021.
Ten of the author’s books were adapted for screen by her husband, starring actors including Liam Neeson, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Elizabeth Hurley. Remarkably, given how prolific she was, Bradford always wrote in long-hand or on an electric typewriter and claimed almost never to have writer’s block. When Robert died after having a stroke in 2019, Bradford was totally devastated.
“We were everything to each other,” she said., external “But I have to keep going. Bob always thought I was a strong woman. He liked strong women – never had time for those little fragile blondes.”
She had auctioned off some pieces of jewellery in 2013 and, following his death and her move into a smaller apartment, Bradford sold more, saying she just didn’t have enough room.
Eventually, Bradford found some solace by turning to her most-loved original characters, announcing she was writing a prequel to A Woman of Substance, this time focusing on Emma Harte’s great friend Shane “Blackie” O’Neill. The book was due to be published in November 2020.
Bradford was awarded an OBE in 2007 and recognised as one of 90 Great Britons celebrated in a special portrait to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday.
