A Woman of Substance author dies at 91

Author Barbara Taylor Bradford, known for best-selling novels including A Woman of Substance, has died at the age of 91.

Published in 1979, A Woman of Substance sold 30 million copies and spawned seven sequels and a TV adaptation, which is still the most-watched programme in Channel 4’s history.

It was the first of 40 novels by Taylor Bradford; others include the Ravenscar, Cavendon and the House of Falconer series.

Paying tribute, her publisher and editor Lynne Drew 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.”

The author was “perennially curious, interested in everyone and extraordinarily driven”, Drew said, and was “an inspiration for millions of readers and countless writers”.

Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said: “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”, he added.

A Woman of Substance was the rags-to-riches tale of Emma Harte, a young woman who goes from a being a maid to building and running a major department store.

The mini-series was watched by almost 14 million people on Channel 4 in 1985 and was nominated for two Emmy Awards.

Emma was played by Jenny Seagrove, who paid tribute to the author as a “dear friend”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One, Seagrove recalled being a young and nervous actress when she first met Taylor Bradford.

“I met Barbara at a screening [of A Woman of Substance] and she just walked up to me and she hugged me and said: ‘Oh, you are my Emma.’

“That was all I needed. I burst into tears.”

She added that the book was semi-autobiographical and “you could feel the truth in it”.

Taylor Bradford had a huge impact on women, Seagrove said.

“We’d go on publicity tours… and women would come up to me randomly… and say ‘You changed my life’ because Emma Harte had changed their life in some way, [like] to start a business. It literally changed women’s lives.”

The actress said she went to the US for Taylor Bradford’s 90th birthday celebrations last year.

“Even though she was ill, she put on her finery and was piped in by a bagpiper. She just never changed. She was always curious, always kind, always championing women and always giving and sharing.

“She championed women before it was fashionable, and that’s a great legacy,” Seagrove added.

A statement from Taylor Bradford’s representative on Monday said she “died peacefully at her home yesterday (24 November 2024) following a short illness, and was surrounded by loved ones to the very end”.

Taylor Bradford was born in Leeds, where her mother “force-fed me books” and she was in the same primary school class as Alan Bennett.

Young Barbara had her first story published at the age of 10 in a children’s magazine, and left school at 15 to work as a typist and copytaker on the Yorkshire Evening Post.

She got her first stories into the newspaper’s pages by surreptitiously slipping them into the sub-editor’s tray. It took the editors some time to realise what she was doing, but they then promoted her to be a journalist, and she was the paper’s only female reporter at the time.

She went on to write an interior decoration column that was syndicated to 183 newspapers, and her first books were about home design.

They included the Complete Encyclopedia of Homemaking Ideas in 1968, and she also wrote a string of entries in the How to be the Perfect Wife series.

Her first foray into fiction, when she was in her mid-40s, brought huge success and broke the mould.

“When I wrote A Woman of Substance I didn’t sit down and think, I’m going to write about a woman warrior who conquers the world and smashes the glass ceiling, but I did want to write about women in a positive way,” she told the Guardian in 2017.

“At the time there were a lot of very sexy books out there but the women didn’t come out of them very well.”

Her other novels included the Ravenscar trilogy, about a 20th Century dynasty that finished with 25-year-old Elizabeth, loosely based on Elizabeth I, at the head of a business empire.

The four-book Cavendon series follows two families – one aristocratic, the other their servants – from the 1920s to the 40s.

Standalone novels included A Sudden Change of Heart, The Women in His Life and A Secret Affair.

Her most recent novel, The Wonder of it All, was published last year.

“I think people understand now, I write about women warriors – women who go out and conquer the world, who are not going to be dependent on anybody,” the author told BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions in 2022.

“They’re going to have a career, and they’re going to be successful, and they’re driven and ambitious and disciplined and determined.

“And I guess I keep borrowing from myself because that’s the way I’m made.”

A number of her books were turned into TV or film versions. A Woman of Substance starred Liam Neeson opposite Seagrove, while Elizabeth Hurley appeared in 1989’s Act of Will, and Anthony Hopkins was in 1991’s To Be The Best.

The screen versions were made by the author’s husband, Hollywood producer Robert Bradford.

They married on Christmas Eve in 1963, after which she moved to the US. He died in 2019.

Taylor Bradford’s spokeswoman said she would be buried alongside her late husband in New York.

Taylor Bradford was made an OBE for services to literature by Queen Elizabeth in 2007, and was also an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust.

In its tribute, the charity hailed her as “a passionate advocate for improving literacy skills throughout her life”, and said she “helped change lives in some of the UK’s most disadvantaged communities”.