Barbara Taylor Bradford has died.
The author - whose best-known work, 'A Woman of Substance' sold 30 million copies after its release in 1979 and spawned seven sequels and a TV adaptation - passed away at home at the age of 91 on Sunday (24.11.24) following a short illness, “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”, her publisher has announced.
Lynne Drew, her longtime publisher and editor at HarperCollins said: "Dominating the bestseller lists, she broke new ground with her sweeping epic novels spanning generations, novels which were resolutely not romances, and she epitomised the woman of substance she created, particularly with her ruthless work ethic.
[Working with Barbara] was a huge privilege but also a huge amount of fun. Perennially curious, interested in everyone and extraordinarily driven, she loved writing and the conversations we had about her characters were unfailingly the best hours of my week.
“She was an inspiration for millions of readers and countless writers. “I’m so proud to have been her publisher for over 20 years – working with her has been one of the great thrills of my career, and I and everyone at HarperCollins will miss her greatly."
And Charlie Redmayne, the publishing house's chief executive, added: "Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it - and still does to this day.
"She was a natural storyteller [as well as] a great, great friend"."
Barbara - whose husband, Hollywood producer Robert Bradford, died in 2019 - was born in Leeds, north England, and had her first story published in a children's magazine when she was just 10 years old.
She left school at 15 to work as a typist and copytaker at the Yorkshire Evening Post, eventually being promoted to journalist and the paper's only female reporter.
Her first books were about home design, but she broke into the fiction market in her mid-40s, publishing her 40th novel - the third in her 'House of Falconer' series - in 2023. Over the years, she sold more than 91 million books in more than 40 languages and 90 countries.
According to HELLO! magazine, her private funeral will take place in New York, and she will then be laid to rest alongside her late husband at the city's Westchester Hills Cemetery.
